ABSTRACT
Smallpox is a viral disease caused by the variola major virus. First symptoms include fever, headache, and body aches. Waves of smallpox have devastated many parts of the world since at least as far back as the sixth century. Edward Jenner's discovery led to the first vaccine, and it formed the foundation for the science of immunology. In the late summer and early autumn of 1971, several people were diagnosed with smallpox in the port city of Aralsk at the northeast corner of the Aral Sea in what was then the south central part of the Soviet Union. The evidence that the very first patient in Aralsk to contract smallpox picked it up from an open air test of a biological weapon is circumstantial. The government report claims that ten people in Aralsk contracted smallpox, and three of them died. The Soviets claimed to have vaccinated over 42,000 people, almost 33,000 of them for the first time.
