Smallpox Eradication: Global Cooperation in Action

Smallpox killed hundreds of millions of people over the centuries, and it is the only human disease ever eradicated. In 1958 the Soviet deputy health minister Viktor Zhdanov proposed a global eradication campaign at the World Health Assembly, and in 1967 the WHO launched an intensified programme. It succeeded through cooperation between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War, along with thousands of health workers in affected countries.

The key strategy was surveillance and containment, also called ring vaccination: finding cases quickly and vaccinating people around them, rather than vaccinating everyone. The last natural case was Ali Maow Maalin, a hospital cook in Merca, Somalia, in October 1977. The WHO declared smallpox eradicated in May 1980. The campaign shows what global cooperation can achieve, even between rivals.