Pushkin

In 1980, the World Health Organization announced a landmark in the history of public health.

Smallpox had been eradicated.

Two years had passed since the last case of smallpox, a disease that killed three in ten of those it infected,

and scarred or blinded many more.

After waiting for a while to be sure, smallpox was truly gone, the WHO made it official.

Decades later, a physician in Oklahoma City saw a patient complaining of fever and mouthhulsers.

It's not surprising she didn't think of smallpox as a possible explanation, but then came another patient,

and another, in surgeries and emergency rooms across Oklahoma City.

What was going on?

Specialists were called in from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

They confirmed the shocking news, smallpox, was back, and not just in Oklahoma,

reports started coming in from Philadelphia and Atlanta.

Investigators figured out that in each of the three cities, all the smallpox patients

had been at the same all at the same time several days earlier.

What had happened was all too clear.

It was a deliberate, synchronized, terrorist attack.

The very olivirus, which causes smallpox, is highly contagious, even before it develops into the distinctive, disfiguring rash.

Pastures filled with thick, opaque fluid that cover the body.

Just six days after the Oklahoma news, there were 2,000 cases.

Authorities are trying desperately to trace all their contacts.

A vaccine will work if you administer it soon after exposure.

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