Smallpox,

a nasty little virus,     

above, smallpox virus virions, credit: Fred Murphy / Sylvia Whitfield / CDC. the last known smallpox outbreak was in 1977 and the World Health Organization declared the disease eradicated in 1980. The disease killed about 300 million people in the 20th century, and three in 10 people who contracted it died, survivors were often left scarred and blind, as I said a nasty little virus, so I was surprised that when in September an explosion took place and caused a fire at the State Research Center of Virology and Biotechnology, a biological research facility in Siberia known for being one of the two centers in the world housing samples of live smallpox virus, that it was not reported anywhere as far as I could see, except here, still it could have been worse, in August an accident offshore of the Nenoksa missile test site in northern Russia caused an explosion that left five Russian nuclear scientists dead, strangely enough I did not read of that one either except here, in both cases it is alleged there was no risk to the public, but here is the thing, 2 cases where potentially a bad result could have been catastrophic for mankind, I wonder how many other 'near misses' there are that we never hear about?