Hello All,
Its hard to believe I am almost finished writing my first research paper. I still have a few edits to make and some details to add but overall, I'm excited to finish it.
This week I've been looking into the history of vaccine development and the timeframe it has taken to approve the usage of said vaccine. For instance, the smallpox vaccine was developed in the late 1940's and the disease was declared eradicated by the World Health Organization in the late 1970's (Smith, 2013). This is such an amazing accomplishment and a testament to the power of vaccines. Modern technology has given scientists the ability to quickly share genome sequences of viruses which has shortened the research time for vaccine development.
Side note: I also discovered the initial way to inoculate individuals was through variolation, which was the process of introducing a mild version of a virus to a healthy individual. People would tie rags to an infected individual then tie the same rag to a healthy individual to give them a mild version of the virus. In some instances, scabs from a virus would be crushed up and inserted into the nose (as seen in the image). Fascinating stuff right??
Smith, K. (2013, May). Smallpox: Can we still learn from the journey to eradication? Retrieved December 04, 2020, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3734679/
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