Janet Parker

1978, smallpox death in Birmingham.

Janet Parker, medical photographer, virus escaped a university lab one floor below.

The last smallpox death on Earth was a lab accident in a rich democracy.

Anthrax Letters, 2001.

It killed hundreds of millions of people, including an ancient Egyptian pharaoh, Queen Mary II of England, and hundreds of thousands of Native Americans.

But then, in 1978, Janet Parker caught smallpox while working on medical research in Birmingham, England.

In two weeks, more than 500 people were vaccinated.

Janet Parker died on September 11, 1978.

And no one ever caught smallpox again.

The WHO describes the campaign to vaccinate the entire world against smallpox, one of the most profound public health successes in history.

But the last person to die of smallpox contracted it after Maalin did.

That was Janet Parker, a medical photographer who was infected on the job at England's Birmingham University Medical School in 1978.

The microbiology lab was one floor below her dark room and the office that she used to make phone calls.

It is not clear exactly how she came into contact with smallpox virus from the lab.

It was the vaccine that brought it to an end.

The last known case was actually in the UK in September 1978, when a medical photographer called Janet Parker contracted it whilst working at Birmingham University's medical school.

On the floor below where Janet worked, the medical microbiology department were conducting smallpox research, and although it's not entirely known how Janet contracted the disease, it's thought that she either had direct contact with the virus whilst visiting the microbiology corridor, or it had been airborne through the school's duct system.

The virus can be transmitted directly from person to person through droplets that escape when an infected person coughs, sneezes or talks.

Hello, and welcome to HistoryPod.

On 11 September 1978, Janet Parker became the last recorded person in the world to die from smallpox.

Parker was a medical photographer working at the University of Birmingham Medical School and was infected with smallpox from a nearby lab.

It was originally believed the disease was spread by air currents through service ducts within the building.