Smallpox Symptoms
Symptoms of smallpox usually appear 12 to 14 days after you're infected, during the incubation period of seven to seventeen days, you feel and look healthy and can't infect others. Smallpox is a serious, contagious, and sometimes fatal infectious disease. There are two clinical forms of smallpox. Variola major is the severe and most common form of smallpox, with a more extensive rash and higher fever. There are four types of variola major smallpox: ordinary the most frequent type, accounting for 90% or more of cases; modified mild and occurring in previously vaccinated persons;
flat and hemorrhagic both rare and very severe.
Smallpox Symptoms
Following the incubation period, a sudden onset of flu-like signs and symptoms
occurs. Days after exposure, the infected person feels fine and is not contagious
and cannot spread the disease.
- After 7-17 days, the first symptoms of smallpox appear. These include fever, tiredness, head and body aches, and sometimes vomiting. The fever is usually high, in the range of 101 to 104 degrees Fahrenheit. At this time, people are usually too sick to carry on their normal activities. This stage may last for 2 to 4 days.
- Next, a rash appears first as small red spots on the tongue and in the mouth. A rash then appears on the skin, starting on the face and spreading to the arms and legs and then to the hands and feet. Usually the rash spreads to all parts of the body within 24 hours.
- The rash becomes raised bumps and the bumps become pustules, which are raised, usually round and firm to the touch as if theres a small round object under the skin.
- The pustules begin to form a crust and then scab. By the end of the second week after the rash appears, most of the sores have scabbed over.
- The scabs begin to fall off, leaving scars. Most scabs will have fallen off three weeks after the rash first appears.
There is no cure for smallpox. There's some evidence that cidofovir, an antiviral medication normally used to treat an infection known as cytomegalovirus, CMV, might prevent smallpox if administered a day or two
before exposure. Smallpox vaccine itself can prevent or lessen the severity of the disease if given within four days of infection. But neither of these is useful once signs and symptoms develop, and both can have serious side effects. For now, the best that doctors can offer people with smallpox is supportive therapy and antibiotics to prevent secondary infections.
Smallpox Symptoms
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