Latest Cowpox Stories
The observation that milkmaids are frequently infected with cowpox but rarely catch smallpox is generally credited to the English doctor Edward Jenner. Although Jenner might not have been the first person to notice the correlation, he was the first to make use of it: in 1796 he “vaccinated” children with material from cowpox blisters and showed that they became immune to smallpox. Jenner’s work led directly to the development of a smallpox vaccine and less than 200 years later the...
In the annals of medicine, Edward Jenner's 1796 vaccination of a young boy against smallpox, using fluid from cowpox blisters, remains a landmark case. In a new study, Kathryn Sykes, a researcher at Arizona State University's Biodesign Institute and her colleagues have taken a fresh look at cowpox. Their findings, appearing in the advanced online issue of Virology, demonstrate that this ancient pathogen still has much to teach us, and may hasten development of novel vaccines against smallpox...
Researchers report this month that red colobus monkeys in a park in western Uganda have been exposed to an unknown orthopoxvirus, a pathogen related to the viruses that cause smallpox, monkeypox and cowpox. Most of the monkeys screened harbor antibodies to a virus that is similar "“ but not identical "“ to known orthopoxviruses.The findings appear online in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases.This is the first effort to screen Ugandan red colobus monkeys for orthopoxviruses, said...
Latest Cowpox Reference Libraries
Vaccinia virus (VACV or VV) is a large, complex, enveloped virus belonging to the poxvirus family. It is well-known for its role in eradicating smallpox. It was the first human disease to to successfully be eradicated by science. The World Health Organization was the one who completed the endeavor. The vaccinia virus saw renewed interest in the early 21st century due to concerns about the smallpox virus being used as an agent for bioterrorism. They can be divided into four types:...
The Cowpox virus causes a skin disease known as cowpox. It is related to the vaccinia virus and gained its name because it spread by dairymaids touching the udders of infected cows. It manifests as red blisters. It is similar to smallpox although much milder and was actually the basis of the first smallpox vaccine. A person who recovers from cowpox is immune to smallpox. In 1980 the World Health Organization announced that smallpox was the first disease to be eradicated world wide by a...
