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  • NEWS FEATURE

Smallpox and other viruses plagued humans much earlier than suspected

Genetic research is rewriting the history of diseases.
  1. Laura Spinney

    1. Laura Spinney is a science writer based in Paris. Her most recent book is Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How it Changed the World.

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The skull and upper part of a skeleton, covered in dirt

Remains of a smallpox carrier buried in Öland, Sweden, between ad 800 and 1050. Credit: The Swedish National Heritage Board

The death date of smallpox is clear. After killing more than 300 million people in the twentieth century, it claimed its last victim in 1978; two years later, on 8 May 1980, the World Health Assembly declared that the variola virus, which causes smallpox, had been eradicated. But the origins of this devastating virus are obscure. Now, genetic evidence is starting to uncover when smallpox first started attacking people.

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Nature 584, 30-32 (2020)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-02083-0

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