Smallpox questions?

Question

how does smallpox get into organs that it affects?
the type of organisms that causes your disease?

Answer 1

Smallpox was declared eradicated in 1977, and absent bioterrorism, we won't see it. It is a virus that spreads throughout the body and erupts in pustules (or "pox") on the skin and in various organs, frequently in the lungs.

Answer 2

First of all, nobody except lab workers and military personel can get a small pox vaccine anymore, so don't bother trying to get one. There is a small amount of a related virus called monkey pox circulating in sub-Saharan Africa, but you'd have to be there and very unlucky to get it - and it's less severe than the real thing. As for worst case senario...it's scary, especially if somebody weaponizes small pox to hit a lot of people at a time. Practically everybody in the world is susceptible to the virus. Anybody over 35 probably got the vaccine, but the immunity is likely to be very weak by now and won't protect them. A few people, like some lab workers, some first responders and millitary personel who are at risk of getting small pox are vaccinated, but the rest of the word, over 6 billion, could all get it. If you do get it, the mortality rate is 30% (3 out of 10 people die). The rest usually get disfiguring scars. To make things worse, the virus spreads quite easily andas much as 60% of people exposed to a sick person will also get sick. So over all, the extent of the dammage really depends on how many people are initially infected and how much spread can be contained. Hope this helps answer your question without scaring you too much...