Because alastrim is a less debilitating disease than smallpox, patients are more frequently ambulant and thus able to infect others more rapidly.

V. minor is the rarer of the two strains, and causes a much less severe disease (sometimes called "alastrim"), with a fatality rate of around 1%.

Like variola major, alastrim is spread through inhalation of the virus in the air, which can occur through face-to-face contact or through fomites.

Like smallpox, Alastrim has now been totally eradicated from the globe thanks to the 1960s Global Smallpox Eradication campaign.

V. minor causes a milder form of disease (also known as alastrim, cottonpox, milkpox, whitepox, and Cuban itch) which kills about 1% of its victims.

Other names for alastrim include: white pox, kaffir pox, Cuban itch, West Indian pox, milk pox, and pseudovariola.

Variola Major (Smallpox) Variola Minor (Alastrim) Smallpox is an infectious disease caused by the variola virus.

Although alastrim has the same incubation period and pathogenetic stages as smallpox, alastrim is believed to have a mortality rate of less than 1%, as compared to smallpox's 30%.