ruffeodrive

Ruffeo Drive

Dog Health 

Smallpox Vaccine Has Lessons for COVID Vaccine

Kar-Bay-Inc 645 Comments

[ad_1]

By Robert Preidt
HealthDay Reporter


TUESDAY, July 21, 2020 (HealthDay News) — Scientists who have identified the early smallpox strains used to create vaccines against the disease say this type of genetic research could help efforts to develop a vaccine against the new coronavirus.

Smallpox was among the most dangerous viral diseases in human history, killing about three of every 10 people who were infected. Many of those who survived were disabled, blind or disfigured.

The early vaccines eventually led to smallpox being declared eradicated 40 years ago in the most successful vaccination program ever attempted. The success of the campaign and the new genetic findings about the early strains used to create vaccines highlight the value of vaccination, according to the authors of the study published online July 20 in the journal Genome Biology.

“Understanding the history, the evolution and the ways in which these viruses can function as vaccines is hugely important in contemporary times,” said study co-author and evolutionary geneticist Hendrik Poinar, director of the Ancient DNA Center at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.

“This work points to the importance of looking at the diversity of these vaccine strains found out in the wild. We don’t know how many could provide cross protection from a wide range of viruses, such as flus or coronaviruses,” said Poinar, a principal investigator at the university’s Institute for Infectious Disease Research.

In this study, researchers reconstructed and analyzed the genomes of smallpox virus fragments recovered from vaccination kits used during the Civil War era. They were able to do this without damaging the artifacts.

Lead researcher Ana Duggan is a former postdoctoral student in the department of anthropology at McMaster, who is now at the Public Health Agency of Canada. “Vaccination is a wonderful process with a rich medical history that we should celebrate,” she said in a university news release.

“Medical museums are incredible repositories of our past and of our collective history. The new tools we develop in this work allow us to begin to investigate how medical sources, procedures and techniques have changed through time,” Duggan added.



WebMD News from HealthDay


Sources

SOURCE: McMaster University, news release, July 19, 2020




Copyright © 2013-2020 HealthDay. All rights reserved.



[ad_2]

Source link

You May Also Like

CDC Signs Off on RSV Vaccine for Older Adults

Kar-Bay-Inc

Healing Homemade Dog Paw Balm – Top Dog Tips

Kar-Bay-Inc 2

COVID Can Be Passed to Your Cat

Kar-Bay-Inc 772

645 thoughts on “Smallpox Vaccine Has Lessons for COVID Vaccine”

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.