CNA754 Foundations Of Perioperative Nursing Practice 2

Eradication of Small Pox

Smallpox is a contagious disease that is caused by the Variola, belonging to the family of orthopox virus. It is one of the fatal and devastating diseases known till date (Taylor, 2014). Small pox was declared to be eradicated after the global immunization campaign set up by World health organization (WHO) (“WHO , The Smallpox Eradication Programme – SEP (1966-1980)”, 2018). Vaccination campaigns, surveillance were being conducted at the hotspot where the disease was found in a pandemic form.

On January, 1967, WHO launched the small pox eradication program. At that period the eradication plan was solely confined to mass vaccination of the vulnerable individuals in the endemic areas. It was reported that in some parts of India, small pox was still persistent despite of the intensive vaccination programs (“WHO , The Smallpox Eradication Programme – SEP (1966-1980)”, 2018). The method of institutional learning and local adaptation was the core of the success of the campaigns. The containment and the surveillance were effective and it was not a single policy adopted by WHO. The campaign comprised of a broad range of measures that was genuinely effective in early detection of the diseases. What ultimately eradicated the small pox is the combined action of mass vaccination and constant surveillance for reducing the incidence of the disease such that the detection could eliminate remaining endemic foci (Henderson, 2009).

Three major innovations in the field vaccinated paved the way of small pox eradication. The most significant approach was the mass production of the freeze dried vaccine in many countries. Previously in the year 1959, the WHO smallpox program had to depend on liquid vaccines that had to be used within a narrow index of 48 hours, but the potency o freeze dried vaccine was much more than that of the liquid vaccines. The second notable change was observed in the field of vaccine administration. The traditional method was to scratch the vaccines in the superficial layers of the skin that resulted in wounds sometimes. Furthermore the scratch method was not effective in large scale vaccinations. In 1963, the US National Communicable Disease Center introduced a hydraulic jet injector that is capable of vaccinating almost 100 patients in an hour, although the jet injector was found to be too expensive for mass injection in the densely populated countries.  The use of the bifurcated needle was another milestone in the small pox campaign. Other important measure taken up by WHO included the small pox recognition cards, rewards, watch guards, containment books and rumor registers. The epidemiologists were extensively trained, who reached the remotest villages for obtaining the data and watch against the infections form the neighboring areas. The small pox program had been successful due to its extensive planning and administration, developing a step by step level of control (Henderson & Klepac, 2013).

There are certain factors that had helped the eradication of the small pox virus. The short incubation period of the virus made the containment possible. The variola virus did not have any animal reservoir other than humans, hence there was no danger being infected by the virus by an animal carrier (Petersen et al., 2015). The symptoms of the small pox were quite clear which made the screening easier. Again since small pox is transmitted from person to person, hence the transmission rate is slow. The most important factor is the mass vaccination program. The small pox vaccine works by eliciting the diverse immune response that produces antibodies against the virus. Some surface protein of the virions acts as the target binding sites for the antibodies, which neutralizes the infectivity of the virus (Moss, 2011).

References

Henderson, D. A. (2009). Smallpox: the death of a disease(Vol. 237). Amherst: Prometheus Books.

Henderson, D. A., & Klepac, P. (2013). Lessons from the eradication of smallpox: an interview with DA Henderson. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B, 368(1623), 20130113.

Moss, B. (2011). Smallpox vaccines: targets of protective immunity. Immunological Reviews, 239(1), 8–26. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1600-065X.2010.00975.x

Petersen, B. W., Damon, I. K., Pertowski, C. A., Meaney-Delman, D., Guarnizo, J. T., Beigi, R. H., … & Willoughby, R. E. (2015). Clinical guidance for smallpox vaccine use in a postevent vaccination program.

Taylor, M. W. (2014). Smallpox. In Viruses and man: A History of Interactions (pp. 143-164). Springer, Cham.

WHO | The Smallpox Eradication Programme – SEP (1966-1980). (2018). Who.int. Retrieved 12 April 2018, from https://www.who.int/features/2010/smallpox/en/