Vaccination disease people tried to prevent by inoculation and was the first disease for which a vaccine was produced. The smallpox vaccine was invented in 1796 by English physician Edward Jenner and although at least six people had used the same principles years earlier he was the first to publish evidence that it was effective and to provide advice on its production. Louis Pasteur furthered the concept through his work in microbiology. The immunization was called "vaccination" because it was derived from a virus affecting cows ( 'cow'). Smallpox was a contagious and deadly disease, causing the deaths of 20–60% of
Smallpox vaccine his daughter, formed from the needle shaped to form an "O". This represented "Target Zero", the objective of the campaign. Smallpox was eradicated by a massive international search for outbreaks, backed up with a vaccination program, starting in 1967. It was organised and co-ordinated by a World Health Organization (WHO) unit, set up and headed by Donald Henderson. The last case in the Americas occurred in 1971 (Brazil), south-east Asia (Indonesia) in 1972, and on the Indian subcontinent in 1975 (Bangladesh). After two years of intensive searches, what proved to be the last endemic case anywhere in the world occurred