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Gro Harlem Brundtland, MD
Director-General
World Health Organization

JAMA. 2002;287:1104.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

The global eradication of smallpox, certified in 1979, is one of the greatest public health achievements in history. It marked the end of a disease that in the past had killed 3 million people every year and scarred or blinded millions more. It also commemorated a decade, during the Cold War, when all countries united behind a common humanitarian cause. The United States was the largest donor and provided major logistic and staff support. The Soviet Union was the largest supplier of vaccine.

In 1967, when WHO launched its plan to eradicate smallpox in 10 years, the disease was endemic in 31 countries with a total population of over 1 billion. Most of these countries presented formidable obstacles: teeming cities, poor health care systems, fragile governments, civil unrest, famine, war, and remote areas unmapped and inaccessible by road.

No effective treatment against smallpox was ever developed. . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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