Vaccines have been in the news recently. Over the last few weeks, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has changed vaccination recommendations and gutted an influential committee that recommends which shots Americans should get. Some experts worry that these changes could lead to outbreaks of diseases the US has long had under control.
So this week, we're revisiting a story we made a few years ago about the world's very first vaccine, and the disease it helped eradicate: smallpox.
Smallpox was around for more than 3,000 years and killed at least 300 million people in the 20th century. Then, by 1980, it was gone.
Rahima Banu was the last person in the world to have the deadliest form of smallpox. In 1975, Banu was a toddler growing up in a remote village in Bangladesh when she developed the telltale bumpy rash. Soon, public health workers from around the world showed up at her home to try to keep the virus from spreading. This is her story.
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