Variola virus
E617597
Variola virus is the orthopoxvirus that causes smallpox, a once-devastating human disease that was globally eradicated through vaccination efforts led by the World Health Organization.
All labels observed (2)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Variola major virus | 1 |
| Variola virus canonical | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T6766585 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Variola virus Context triple: [World Health Organization smallpox eradication program, targetPathogen, Variola virus]
-
A.
Ebolavirus
Ebolavirus is a genus of filamentous, enveloped RNA viruses in the Filoviridae family that cause severe and often fatal hemorrhagic fever in humans and other primates.
-
B.
Zaire ebolavirus
Zaire ebolavirus is a highly virulent species of Ebola virus responsible for severe hemorrhagic fever outbreaks in humans, including the major 2014–2016 epidemic in West Africa.
-
C.
John Cunningham virus
John Cunningham virus is a human polyomavirus that typically remains latent but can cause the severe demyelinating brain disease progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy in immunocompromised individuals.
-
D.
Yersinia pestis
Yersinia pestis is a highly virulent bacterium responsible for plague, including the historic pandemics of bubonic, septicemic, and pneumonic forms.
-
E.
Bombali ebolavirus
Bombali ebolavirus is a species of ebolavirus first identified in bats that is capable of infecting humans and is associated with Ebola virus disease.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Variola virus Target entity description: Variola virus is the orthopoxvirus that causes smallpox, a once-devastating human disease that was globally eradicated through vaccination efforts led by the World Health Organization.
-
A.
Ebolavirus
Ebolavirus is a genus of filamentous, enveloped RNA viruses in the Filoviridae family that cause severe and often fatal hemorrhagic fever in humans and other primates.
-
B.
Zaire ebolavirus
Zaire ebolavirus is a highly virulent species of Ebola virus responsible for severe hemorrhagic fever outbreaks in humans, including the major 2014–2016 epidemic in West Africa.
-
C.
John Cunningham virus
John Cunningham virus is a human polyomavirus that typically remains latent but can cause the severe demyelinating brain disease progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy in immunocompromised individuals.
-
D.
Yersinia pestis
Yersinia pestis is a highly virulent bacterium responsible for plague, including the historic pandemics of bubonic, septicemic, and pneumonic forms.
-
E.
Bombali ebolavirus
Bombali ebolavirus is a species of ebolavirus first identified in bats that is capable of infecting humans and is associated with Ebola virus disease.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (48)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
human pathogen
ⓘ
orthopoxvirus ⓘ virus ⓘ |
| associatedDisease |
Variola major
NERFINISHED
ⓘ
Variola minor NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| BaltimoreClassification | Group I dsDNA viruses ⓘ |
| biosafetyLevel | BSL-4 ⓘ |
| caseFatalityRateRange | up to 30 percent for Variola major ⓘ |
| causes | smallpox ⓘ |
| clinicalFeature | fever followed by characteristic pustular rash ⓘ |
| controlMethod | vaccination with vaccinia virus ⓘ |
| currentVaccinePolicy | routine vaccination discontinued after eradication ⓘ |
| designatedAs |
bioterrorism threat agent
ⓘ
select agent ⓘ |
| DNAStrandPolarity | double-stranded ⓘ |
| entryReceptor | glycosaminoglycans on host cells ⓘ |
| enveloped | true ⓘ |
| eradicationDeclaredBy | World Health Organization NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| eradicationStatus | eradicated in the wild ⓘ |
| eradicationYear | 1980 ⓘ |
| family | Poxviridae NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| genomeSizeApproximate | about 186 kilobase pairs ⓘ |
| genomeStructure | linear DNA ⓘ |
| genomeType | double-stranded DNA ⓘ |
| genus | Orthopoxvirus NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| historicalImpact |
caused high childhood mortality
ⓘ
caused major pandemics ⓘ |
| hostRange | narrow ⓘ |
| immuneEvasionMechanism |
inhibition of host interferon responses
ⓘ
production of viral cytokine decoy receptors ⓘ |
| incubationPeriodRange | about 7 to 17 days ⓘ |
| infects | humans ⓘ |
| naturalHost | Homo sapiens ⓘ |
| order | unassigned within Poxviridae ⓘ |
| parentTaxon | Orthopoxvirus NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| primaryPrevention | vaccination ⓘ |
| primaryReservoir | humans ⓘ |
| primaryTropism |
epidermal cells
ⓘ
respiratory epithelium ⓘ |
| replicationCharacteristic | encodes its own transcription machinery ⓘ |
| replicationSite | cytoplasm ⓘ |
| taxonRank | species ⓘ |
| transmissionRoute |
aerosol
ⓘ
direct contact with lesions ⓘ respiratory droplets ⓘ |
| vaccineTypeUsed | live attenuated vaccinia virus vaccine ⓘ |
| virionShape | brick-shaped ⓘ |
| zoonotic | false ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Variola virus Description of subject: Variola virus is the orthopoxvirus that causes smallpox, a once-devastating human disease that was globally eradicated through vaccination efforts led by the World Health Organization.
Referenced by (2)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
this entity surface form:
Variola major virus