Smallpox Variolation Research Paper

The early techniques of prevention of smallpox were later known as inoculation or variolation. In China, powdered scabs of smallpox pustules were blown into the nostrils of healthy persons through a tube. The mechanism of variolation was understood by many prominent ancient cultures in that they knew that prior exposure of uninfected people to mild strains of the Variola virus would induce an immune response in the inoculated subjects who would produce a faster immune response when later exposed to the disease. However, the methods used to perform variolation differed from culture to culture. In Africa, some tribes injected the pus of smallpox vesicles directly under the skin and in other regions of Asia, the dried scabs of infected people
Dr Jenner’s work resulted in more than 180,000 people being vaccinated and the commencement of the mass production of smallpox vaccines. Also, in 1864, the smallpox vaccination became mandatory in England and Wales. The vaccinia virus, which is the virus that is used in the smallpox vaccine is a double stranded DNA virus (dsDNA virus) and unlike other dsDNA viruses, it can replicate inside the cytoplasm of the host cell and doesn’t need to incorporate its DNA in the DNA of the host cell because it already has its DNAdependent RNA polymerase, polyA polymerase, and several capping enzymes packed within its capsid so it doesn’t need the host cells machinery to produce important enzymes. The vaccinia virus has protein components on its cell membrane, which is common in all poxviruses. Upon injection, the protein components on the surface of the vaccinia cell membrane allow it to fuse with the host cell membrane causing the entry of the viral core into the cytoplasm of the host cell, whereby the virally packaged transcriptase enzymes start transcription of early viral
The killer T cells bind to antigen presenting infected cells and cause pores in the membrane of the infected cells. Since all the poxviruses have the same antigens on their cell surface membranes, upon a second infection by poxviruses the B memory cells will carry out the humoral response marking viruses for destruction by phagocytes in the bloodstream by attaching to viral antigens with their specific antibodies and the T memory cells will cause the killer T cells to lyse infected cells. As the vaccinia virus is much less virulent, when the vaccine is applied, the vaccinia viruses replicate locally within the basal epithelium layer of the skin causing a local papule to appear on the 3rd-5th day of vaccination. The papule becomes pustular filled with fluid on the 7th-10th day of vaccination. By the 10th day the infected cells are thought to have been killed at the vaccination site and this is characterized by the drying of the pustule to form a scab leaving behind a characteristic scar of about 1 cm that acts as evidence of prior vaccination. Revaccination accelerates this course of events. The most popular vaccine of smallpox is known as