[jimkress]

Smallpox has been eradicated

This was a unilaterial declaration by the UN and the CDC - until more cases cropped up in Africa. There is no way to prove smallpox has been eradicated until we can examine everyone in every geographical location over their entire lifetimes.

It's a good bet that smallpox still exisits in many areas around the world. Most likely remote locations in Africa and Asia as well as in the slums of cities in those areas.

[Dog Gone]

I don't think so. The medical science on this is pretty sound. Smallpox is only a human disease, meaning it can't exist outside of the human body. The last two cases were in Somalia in 1977, and once those were isolated, the disease died (except for in laboratories).

It's impossible to prove a negative, i.e., that there is no smallpox, but in this case we're about as sure as we can be about anything.

We've had far more sightings of Bigfoot in the last 25 years than we've had of smallpox.