It is said that Jenner made this discovery by himself, possibly without knowing previous accounts 20 years earlier. Although Jesty may have been the first to discover it, Jenner made vaccination widely accessible and has therefore been credited for its invention. Life Cycle
The genome for the CPXV is over 220kbp. This makes it the largest genome in the Orthopoxviral species. It can be divided into three different regions. There are two end regions called R1 and R2 and a main central region that is roughly half of the size of the genome. There are also inverted terminal repeats that are located at the terminal sites of the genome and measure around 10kbp. These inverted terminal repeats can then be divided into two more distinct regions. The first section is around 7.5kbp long and includes a coding region. The other section includes a terminal region that can be repeated up to as many times as thirty and is composed of 50 nucleotides. The CPXV genome encodes only 30-40% of products of which are involved in the pathogenesis of the virus. The CPXV genome has the most complete set of genes out of all of the orthopoxviruses. This unique feature of CPXV makes it ideal to be able to mutate into different strains of the virus. It is a double stranded DNA virus. The virus does have an envelope that surrounds the virion. The cowpoxs genome allows the virus to encode its own transcription machinery along with its own DNA replication machinery.
Eventually, in 1840, the inoculation became banned in England and was replaced with the cowpox vaccination as the main medical solution to combat smallpox. The cowpox vaccination saved the British Army thousands of soldiers, by making them immune to the effects of smallpox in upcoming wars. The cowpox also saved the United Kingdom thousands of pounds. Kinepox
Kinepox is an alternative term for the smallpox vaccine used in early 19th-century America. Popularized by Jenner in the late 1790s, kinepox was a far safer method for inoculating people against smallpox than the previous method, variolation, which had a 3% fatality rate.In a famous letter to Meriwether Lewis in 1803, Thomas Jefferson instructed the Lewis and Clark Expedition to "carry with you some matter of the kine-pox; inform those of them with whom you may be, of its efficacy as a preservative from the smallpox; & encourage them in the use of it..." Jefferson had developed an interest in protecting American Indians from smallpox, having been aware of epidemics along the Missouri River during the previous century. A year before his special instructions to Lewis, Jefferson had persuaded a visiting delegation of North American Indian chieftains to be vaccinated with kinepox during the winter of 1801–1802. Unfortunately, Lewis never got the opportunity to use kinepox during the pairs expedition, as it had become inadvertently inactive—a common occurrence in a time before vaccines were stabilized with preservatives such as glycerol or kept at refrigeration temperatures. Prevention
Today, the virus is found in Europe, mainly in the UK.