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How Cows
Saved the
World Jenner was convinced that if enough people were
vaccinated, smallpox would die out-and he was right. In
the last quarter of the 20th century, smallpox became
“No one is safe until everyone is safe.” the first disease in history to be entirely eliminated. This
- World Health Organization was accomplished after an immense worldwide
vaccination effort that reduced cases from 15 million
annually to none in fewer than ten years.
Decades later, vaccines are and indispensable part of the
Edward Jenner lived and worked as a doctor in rural scientific community as they are the tool with which
England. His 18th-century world was a place where children are protected against infectious diseases which,
millions of people, on every continent, died of a in the past, used to be deadly. Similarly, humanity has
disease which doctors were unable to cure or acquired the ability to ward off diseases, slow down the
prevent from spreading: smallpox. As many as one rate at which they affect us and establish longevity.
out of every three people who caught it died, and
children were hit the hardest. A prime example of the importance of vaccination was
the global pandemic that emerged in late 2019. The
Like others before him, Jenner noted that once virus, SARS-CoV-2, quickly spread worldwide, causing
people had caught the disease and survived, they the disease known as COVID-19. With the significant
would never suffer from it again. He concluded that impact on public health, economies, and daily life, there
if a person could be exposed to a harmless form of was an urgent need for a solution.
the disease, they would be protected from the
disease itself from then on. He soon found just what The scientific community rallied to develop vaccines at
he needed to accomplish this in the farm area where an unprecedented pace. Traditional vaccine
he lived: it was cowpox, a form of smallpox which development processes were expedited without
infected cows. He had heard that farm workers who compromising safety standards. Collaborations
regularly came into contact with cows would get this between pharmaceutical companies, governments, and
mild disease but would never catch the lethal form research institutions played a crucial role in accelerating
of smallpox-even when everyone around them did. the timeline.
By 1796 Jenner had found a way to protect children Global regulatory agencies, such as the U.S. Food and
from smallpox-starting with the 8-year-old son of Drug Administration (FDA), the European Medicines
his gardener-by exposing them to material infected Agency (EMA), and the World Health Organization
with cowpox. He called the technique he developed (WHO), worked to review and authorize vaccines for
to do this “vaccination”, from the Latin word vacca, emergency use or full approval based on rigorous
meaning cow. testing and monitoring.
