Even so, researchers believe that vaccination development is the most viable option to prevent the spread of disease in the long-term. However, since plague is a disease spread by bacteria, the advent of modern antibiotics can be used as treatment. As recent as 2017, a plague outbreak in Madagascar attracted widespread attention and panic. Plague is perhaps most notorious for killing millions of people during the Middle Ages, but the disease is still active in areas around the world. But to date, no licensed vaccine is available. Plague is one of the world's oldest and most lethal diseases, culminating in nearly 200 million deaths throughout human history. People praying for relief from the bubonic plague, circa 1350. To date, smallpox remains the only disease to have been completely eliminated around the world through vaccination efforts. Then, in 1967, a global effort that provided a higher level of vaccine production and an advancement in needle technology eventually lead to eradication of the disease by 1980. In 1796, Edward Jenner in the UK created the first successful smallpox vaccine, but it wasn't until the 1950s that vaccine treatments began to effectively eradicate the disease in some parts of the world. It had a devastating mortality rate of up to 30%. By the 18th century, colonization spread the disease across the globe. The origins of smallpox is unknown, though scientists believe it dates all the way back to the Egyptian Empire of the 3rd Century BCE. The eradication of smallpox through a vaccine is seen as one of the biggest achievements in public health history - but it took several centuries to get there. Harry Chamberlain/FPG/Hulton Archive/Getty Images A teenage boy is vaccinated against smallpox by a school doctor and a county health nurse, Gasport, New York, 15th March 1938.

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