Smallpox, before the vaccine was developed was a relatively high mortality disease. Unfortunately, the vaccination program stopped when WHO declared it was eradicated and if it were to break out again, there would be many deaths again. But there are risks always with any vaccination and nowadays, many are all spoiled and softened by too many years of easy living to take that tiny risk. When smallpox was raging worldwide, that risk of complications from the vaccine seemed tiny.
I am reminded of stories of the spanish flu and bubonic plague of days past. The spanish flu only killed about 675,000 americans, with 200,000 deaths October 1918 alone. Eventually, everyone became immune and we all moved on. But I assume millions did die all over the world.
And yet, it is not the %age of mortality that is the problem with SARS and smallpox but how easily these diseases are transmitted. If it was like ebola, which had a much higher mortality but low transmission, then it is not that big of a problem.
However, who here hasn't caught a cold in the last 2 yrs? |
