Biomedical Engineering: Bridging Medicine and Technology 1st Edition by Veronique Tran,Mark Saltzman

Exercise 6

The chapter states, regarding eradication of smallpox, that: "This ambitious project was possible because of two important features of variola infection: 1) the absence of nonhuman reservoirs for the virus, and 2) the non-existence of asymptomatic carriers of the virus." Why are these two features of smallpox important for eradication?