Edward Jenner, was an English physician and scientist who pioneered the concept of vaccines and created the smallpox vaccine, the world's first vaccine. The terms vaccine and vaccination are derived from Variolae vaccinae, the term devised by Jenner to denote cowpox. He used it in 1798 in the title of his Inquiry into the Variolae vaccinae known as the Cow Pox, in which he described the protective effect of cowpox against smallpox.
The smallpox vaccine is the first vaccine to have been developed against a contagious disease. In 1796, British physician Edward Jenner demonstrated that an infection with the relatively mild cowpox virus conferred immunity against the deadly smallpox virus. Cowpox served as a natural vaccine until the modern smallpox vaccine emerged in the 20th century. From 1958 to 1977, the World Health Organization (WHO) conducted a global vaccination campaign that eradicated smallpox, making it the only human disease to be eradicated. Although routine smallpox vaccination is no longer performed on the general public, the vaccine is still being produced to guard against bioterrorism, biological warfare, and mpox.
Batley and Spen is a constituency in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament. The current MP is Kim Leadbeater, a Labour politician, elected in a 2021 by-election by a 323-vote margin. The seat has returned Labour MPs since the 1997 general election.
Birstall is a market and mill town in the metropolitan borough of Kirklees, West Yorkshire, England. It is part of the Birstall and Birkenshaw ward, which had a population of 16,298 at the 2011 census. Historically in the West Riding of Yorkshire, and part of the Heavy Woollen District, Birstall is approximately 6 miles (10 km) south-west of Leeds and situated close to the M62 motorway. The town is situated between Leeds, Bradford, Huddersfield and Wakefield.
Manchester Royal Infirmary (MRI) is a large NHS teaching hospital in Chorlton-on-Medlock, Manchester, England. Founded by Charles White in 1752 as part of the voluntary hospital movement of the 18th century, it is now a major regional and national medical centre. It is the largest Hospital within Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust, and based on its Oxford Road Campus in South Manchester where it shares a site with the Royal Manchester Children's Hospital, Manchester Royal Eye Hospital and Saint Mary's Hospital as well as several other educational and research facilities. The Hospital is also a key site for medical educational within Manchester, serving as a main teaching hospital for School of Medical Sciences, University of Manchester.
Oakwell Hall is an Elizabethan manor house in Birstall, West Yorkshire, England. The Grade I listed hall is set in period gardens surrounded by 110 acres (0.45 km2) of country park.
St Thomas's Hospital Medical School in London was one of the oldest and most prestigious medical schools in the UK. The school was absorbed to form part of GKT School of Medical Education.
Highlands Hospital was a hospital in Winchmore Hill, in the London Borough of Enfield which closed in 1993. The site was redeveloped for residential accommodation, although many of the original buildings remain. The site is designated a conservation area and the former ambulance station is a grade II listed building.
Birstall Shopping Park is a shopping park located in Birstall, Batley, West Yorkshire, England. It contains a wide variety of retailers and includes the region's only IKEA store. Adjacent is another retail park, Junction 27 Retail Park, specialising in bulky goods and electronics. The section of the park containing retailers Pets at Home and Homesense is known as Spring Ram Retail Park, and was built slightly later than the rest of the complex but is under common ownership.
Tecovirimat, sold under the brand name Tpoxx among others, is an antiviral medication with activity against orthopoxviruses such as smallpox and mpox. In 2018 it became the first antipoxviral drug approved in the United States.
The 1947 New York City smallpox outbreak occurred in March 1947 and was declared ended on April 24, 1947. The outbreak marked the largest mass vaccination effort ever conducted for smallpox in America. Within three weeks of the discovery of the outbreak, the U.S. Public Health Service, in conjunction with New York City health officials, had procured the smallpox vaccine and inoculated over 6,350,000 adults and children. Of that number, 5,000,000 had been vaccinated within the first two weeks. The rapid response was credited with limiting the outbreak to 12 people, 10 of whom recovered, while 2 died.
Homerton University Hospital is a teaching hospital in Homerton in the London Borough of Hackney. It is managed by Homerton University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.
An outbreak of smallpox in Bradford in 1962 first came to attention on 11 January 1962, when a cook from the children's hospital in Bradford, West Riding of Yorkshire, England, presented with an unexplained fever and was found to have changes in her blood similar to another sick person at the nearby St Luke's Hospital, both samples appearing compatible with smallpox. The index case was later discovered to be a nine-year old girl who arrived in the UK on 16 December 1961 from Karachi, Pakistan, where there was an ongoing epidemic of smallpox.
A fever hospital or isolation hospital is a hospital for infectious diseases such as scarlet fever and smallpox. Their purpose is to treat affected people while isolating them from the general population. Early examples included the Liverpool Fever Hospital (1801) and the London Fever Hospital (1802). Other examples occurred elsewhere in the British Isles and India.
The Leeds Road Fever Hospital in Bradford, West Yorkshire, England, was a founded in 1867. In 1962, it was one of the hospitals that were quarantined during an epidemic of smallpox in Bradford.
Alasdair Macintosh Geddes is Emeritus Professor of Infection at the University of Birmingham Medical School. In 1978, as the World Health Organization (WHO) was shortly to announce that the world's last case of smallpox had occurred a year earlier in Somalia, Geddes diagnosed a British woman with the disease in Birmingham, England. She was found to be the index case of the outbreak and became the world's last reported fatality due to the disease, five years after he had gained experience on the frontline of the WHO's smallpox eradication programme in Bangladesh in 1973.
The Edinburgh City Hospital was a hospital in Colinton, Edinburgh, opened in 1903 for the treatment of infectious diseases. As the pattern of infectious disease changed, the need for in-patients facilities to treat them diminished. While still remaining the regional centre for infectious disease, in the latter half of the 20th century the hospital facilities diversified with specialist units established for respiratory disease, ear, nose and throat surgery, maxillo-facial surgery, care of the elderly and latterly HIV/AIDS. The hospital closed in 1999 and was redeveloped as residential housing, known as Greenbank Village.
Birstall railway station served the town of Birstall, in the historic county of West Riding of Yorkshire, England, from 1852 to 1962 on the Birstall Branch line.
Birstall Town railway station served the town of Birstall, West Yorkshire, in the historic county of West Riding of Yorkshire, England, from 1900 to 1953 on the Leeds New Line.
