On December 9, 1979, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the definitive eradication of smallpox .
Before that, however, this disease had claimed millions of victims worldwide over the course of nearly three millennia. The first traces of smallpox date back to three Egyptian mummies, including that of the pharaoh Ramses V (1157 BC). From Egypt, the virus trespassed into India and China. In the Middle Ages it was in Europe, where it caused quite limited epidemics. With colonization, it was exported to the Americas and the rest of the world.
The merit of the definitive defeat of the disease is attributed to Edward Jenner, an English doctor who lived between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the inventor of the smallpox vaccine .
