Smallpox eradication

Smallpox eradication was the global effort that ended naturally occurring transmission of variola virus. The World Health Organization certified the disease’s eradication in 1980.

Surveillance-containment strategy: An outbreak-control approach that detects cases, traces contacts, and contains transmission around confirmed infections. Teams shifted from mass vaccination toward finding each case and vaccinating nearby contacts.
World Health Organization: A United Nations agency responsible for coordinating international public health. WHO organized the global campaign and certified eradication.
Ali Maow Maalin: A Somali hospital cook who was the last person known to contract naturally occurring variola major, in 1977. His case prompted an intensive search that helped verify the final known chain of transmission.
WHO smallpox eradication certification: The World Health Assembly’s 1980 declaration that smallpox had been eradicated worldwide. It formalized the end of naturally occurring transmission after international verification.
Polio eradication: The ongoing international effort to interrupt poliovirus transmission worldwide. Unlike smallpox, polio eradication remains incomplete despite decades of vaccination.
Ring vaccination: A vaccination strategy that immunizes a confirmed case’s contacts and their contacts to form a protective ring. It focused scarce vaccine on people most likely to encounter smallpox.
Global Smallpox Eradication Program: The WHO-led international program launched in 1967 to eliminate smallpox worldwide. This program supplied the campaign’s global mandate, coordination, and operational framework.
Janet Parker: A British medical photographer who died of smallpox in 1978 after a laboratory-associated infection. Her death was the last fatal case and the final naturally occurring infection outside Somalia.
Smallpox virus repositories: The two WHO-authorized facilities that retain live variola virus, in the United States and Russia. Eradication did not settle whether remaining virus samples should be destroyed or retained.
Rinderpest eradication: The worldwide elimination of rinderpest, certified by the World Organisation for Animal Health in 2011. It is another successful global eradication, but of an animal disease rather than a human one.

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