Bradford smallpox outbreak of 1962
An outbreak of smallpox in Bradford in 1962 first came to attention on 11 January 1962, when a cook from the children's hospital in Bradford presented with an unexplained fever and was found to have changes in their blood similar to another sick person at the nearby St Luke's Hospital, both samples appearing compatible with smallpox. The index case was later discovered to be a nine-year old girl who arrived in the UK on 16 December 1961 from Karachi, Pakistan, where there was an ongoing epidemic of smallpox.
The outbreak resulted in 14 cases of smallpox, contact tracing of over 1,400 individuals, vaccination of around 250,000 people and six deaths directly due to the disease. It was officially declared over on 12 February 1962.
