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Smallpox (also known by the Latin names Variola or Variola vera) is a highly contagious disease unique to humans.Smallpox is caused by either of two virus variants named Variola major and Variola minor. The deadlier form, V. major, has a mortality rate of 3–35%, while V. minor causes a milder form of disease called alastrim and kills ~1% of its victims. Long-term side-effects for survivors include the characteristic skin scars. Occasional side effects include blindness due to corneal ulcerations and infertility in male survivors.

 Small pox is back !!! Kolkata ( formerly Calcutta – home of the Bengali babus), West Bengal, India. And Bangladesh. In the Indian subcontinent.

Smallpox was responsible for an estimated 300–500 million deaths in the 20th century. As recently as 1967, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that 15 million people contracted the disease and that two million died in that year. After successful vaccination campaigns throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, the WHO certified the eradication of smallpox in 1977. To this day, smallpox is the only human infectious disease to have been completely eradicated from nature. However, there are recent reports of smallpox in Asia as reported by the Times of India(June 2007).

India Friday termed the West Bengal’s alert over return of smallpox, 30 years after it was eradicated from the global map, as a false alarm.

The West Bengal government Thursday had issued a warning in all its districts along the Bangladesh-Myanmar border. West Bengal Director of Health Services Sanchita Bakshi said border security agencies have been asked to monitor if anyone is entering India with fever and rashes, one of the symptoms of the disease.

‘There is no need to panic as this is a false alarm,’ Health Secretary Naresh Dayal told reporters in New Delhi.

Dayal said, his ministry had interacted with the World Health Organisation (WHO), which assured them that there is no outbreak of smallpox either in Bangladesh or Myanmar.

Authorities in the health ministry said the whole scare germinated after a message from the government to a few border states about a possible outbreak of smallpox in neighbouring Bangladesh.

Cherian Varghese, a senior health coordinator of WHO-India, said that vigilance is always good but there is no such outbreak in Bangladesh. ‘We have no knowledge of it. Neither people nor authorities should not worry,’ he told IANS.

West Bengal government meanwhile informed Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose International (NSCBI) airport authorities about the reported danger and asked to screen the passengers arriving from Bangladesh and Myanmar.

State health department sources said any passenger arriving with fever and rashes from these two countries would be quarantined and tested.

A high alert has been sounded in the Indo-Bangladesh border districts. However, Bangladesh authorities have not yet confirmed any case of smallpox and said they have been investigating the situation.

Smallpox is a contagious human disease, which is believed to have been eradicated from India over three decades ago. The World Health Organisation (WHO) declared India a smallpox free country in 1977. The last case of smallpox in India was reported in May 1975 in Bihar when around 1,400 people were infected.

Smallpox is caused by the attack of two types of viral strains – variola major and variola minor. The early symptoms of the disease are high temperature, body ache and headache. In a few days, red spots appear in the mouth and tongue and break open into sores. Later the spots become fluid-filled bumps that turn into pustules.