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Updated: Aug 13, 2025

Vaccinia Reporter Viruses for Quantifying Viral Function at All Stages of Gene Expression
Published on: May 15, 2014
Smallpox, Monkeypox and Other Human Orthopoxvirus Infections
Galina A Shchelkunova1, Sergei N Shchelkunov1
1State Research Center of Virology and Biotechnology "Vector", Rospotrebnadzor, Koltsovo, 630559 Novosibirsk, Russia.
Abstract:
Considering that vaccination against smallpox with live vaccinia virus led to serious adverse effects in some cases, the WHO, after declaration of the global eradication of smallpox in 1980, strongly recommended to discontinue the vaccination in all countries. This led to the loss of immunity against not only smallpox but also other zoonotic orthopoxvirus infections in humans over the past years. An increasing number of human infections with zoonotic orthopoxviruses and, first of all, monkeypox, force us to reconsider a possible re-emergence of smallpox or a similar disease as a result of natural evolution of these viruses. The review contains a brief analysis of the results of studies on genomic organization and evolution of human pathogenic orthopoxviruses, development of modern methods for diagnosis, vaccination, and chemotherapy of smallpox, monkeypox, and other zoonotic human orthopoxvirus infections.
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