A mummy found in the same Lithuanian crypt where researchers extracted DNA from a small child, thought to have died of smallpox.

A mummy found in the same Lithuanian crypt where researchers extracted DNA from a small child, thought to have died of smallpox.
Photo Credit: Kiril Cachovskij

New DNA suggests deadly smallpox was not ancient

It was thought that the virulent disease smallpox has been around for millennia, but new research suggests it was much more recent. A team of researchers led by scientists at McMaster University have found what they believe to be the oldest complete sequence of the deadliest form of this virus.

Lithuanian crypt where the child mummy was located.
Lithuanian crypt where the child mummy was located. © Kiril Čachovskij

DNA sample shows little diversity in virus

“We collected the sample from a child mummy that was approximately two to four years of age found in a church crypt in Vilnius, Lithuania and we’ve dated the remains to…around 1654,” said Ana Duggan, a post-fellow at the McMaster Ancient DNA Centre and lead author of this study.

They found that this particular was ancestral to all the variola virus that was circulating in the 20th century. That shows “that there wasn’t a lot of diversity circulating and that…makes us question how variola virus started going around the world and when it went around the world.”

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Lead author Ana Duggan says we know remarkably little about smallpox.
Lead author Ana Duggan says we know remarkably little about smallpox. © JD Howell

Most variations destroyed

The disease was so virulent that medical authorities rushed to find ways to stop it and developed a vaccine in 1796. That and previous efforts were so effective that they appear to have destroyed most variations of the disease. Researchers say their work suggests that “a split between the more virulent variola major and the less virulent variola minor forms may have occurred in response to evolutionary pressure by the advent of vaccination in 1796.”

Smallpox was finally eradicated from the world in 1979.

‘A fascinating disease’

“I think smallpox is this fascinating disease,” said Duggan. “It has such a deep history with humans but we know remarkably little about it. And part of that is that is because it was such a feared disease. So there was such a strong medical response…to try to eradicate this disease…

“So we don’t know why variola virus was so virulent and so infectious and why caused such high mortality rates…

“I think as we learn more about this virus we’re in fact learning a lot more about the human experience.”

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