Initially, the terms vaccine/vaccination referred only to smallpox, but in 1881 Louis Pasteur proposed that to honour Jenner the terms be widened to cover the new protective inoculations being introduced. read more
Small stocks of the virus remained in secure laboratories and some other laboratories were allowed to maintain stocks of up to 20% of the genome sequence for the purpose of international research. An emergency stock of smallpox vaccine (vaccinia) was kept in deep freeze in certain locations. read more
The story of smallpox prevention — and its eventual eradication through immunization — is a long and compelling one. read more