Cowpox to the mild form of smallpox and the observation that dairy farmers were immune from smallpox inspired the first smallpox vaccine, created and administered by English physician Edward Jenner. The word “vaccination,” coined by Jenner in 1796, is derived from the Latin root "vaccinus", meaning of or from the cow. Once vaccinated, a patient develops antibodies that make them immune to cowpox, but they also develop immunity to the smallpox virus, or "Variola virus". The cowpox vaccinations and later incarnations proved so successful that in 1980, the World Health Organization announced that smallpox was the first disease to be eradicated
1972 Yugoslav smallpox outbreak 1972 Yugoslav smallpox outbreak The 1972 Yugoslav smallpox outbreak was the last major outbreak of smallpox in Europe. It was centred in Kosovo and Belgrade (both then part of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia). A Muslim pilgrim had contracted the smallpox virus in the Middle East. Upon returning to his home in Kosovo, he started the epidemic in which 175 people were infected, 35 of whom died. The epidemic was efficiently contained by enforced quarantine and mass vaccination. The 1982 film "Variola Vera" is based on the event. By 1972, vaccination for smallpox had long been widely available and