Smallpox is believed to have emerged in human populations about 10,000 BC.[4] The earliest physical evidence of it is probably the pustular rash on the mummified body of Pharaoh Ramses V of Egypt.[9] The disease killed an estimated 400,000 Europeans annually during the closing years of the 18th century (including five reigning monarchs),[10] and was responsible for a third of all blindness.[6][11] Of all those infected, 20–60 percent—and over 80 percent of infected children—died from the disease.[12] Smallpox was responsible for an estimated 300–500 million deaths during the 20th century.[13][14][15] As recently as 1967, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that 15 million people contracted the disease and that two million died in that year.[5]
After vaccination campaigns throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, the WHO certified the global eradication of smallpox in 1979.[5]Smallpox is one of two infectious diseases to have been eradicated, the other being rinderpest, which was declared eradicated in 2011.[16][17][18]