Photo courtesy of WHO
A Google image search of “smallpox” will display photos which, to be frank, are startling and hard to look at. What’s even more shocking than the images themselves is the fact that smallpox remains the only disease to have been eradicated* from humanity. 2010 marks the 30th anniversary of the Global Commission for the Certification of Smallpox Eradication officially reporting the elimination of smallpox disease—one of the greatest triumphs in medicine and public health.
To commemorate this truly admirable feat, hundreds of global health practitioners, scientists and advocates have gathered in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil for a symposium that is aimed at sharing “lessons, legacies, and innovations” thirty years post the eradication of smallpox.
The Sabin Vaccine Institute will be live streaming the symposium here, and in addition to presentations by our President, Dr. Peter Hotez, and Executive Vice-President Dr. Ciro de Quadros, who served as the World Health Organization (WHO) Chief Epidemiologist for the Smallpox Eradication Program in Ethiopia from 1970 to 1976, the symposium will feature presentations by Dr. DA Henderson, Former Chief of the WHO Smallpox Eradication Program; Dr. Mirta Roses, Director of the Pan American Health Organization; Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University; and Dr. Tadataka Yamada, President of the Global Health Program at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, among others.
When I posed a question on Twitter, asking for four diseases on the verge of eradication I was surprised, and excited, by the number of responses that I received. In addition to polio, measles, rubella, and guinea worm (the four responses I was looking for), many people rightly listed a number of NTDs, and other diseases, which could be eradicated in the near future. The bulk of the smallpox symposium will be spent discerning how the global effort applied to smallpox elimination can be applied to current global health challenges, and rightly so—thirty years is far too long to have to wait to add another disease to the list of those eradicated.
*Dictionary.com definition of “eradication:” to remove or destroy utterly; extirpate: i.e. to eradicate smallpox throughout the world.
