Smallpox eradication
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Editor-In-Chief: C. Michael Gibson, M.S., M.D. [1]
Overview
The eradication of smallpox required a global effort. Every country was susceptible to the devastating disease. Eradicating this infection would take many years a significant sum of money, but with a worldwide commitment, it would be possible. Success was achieved in the 1970s and smallpox was officially eradicated.
Eradication
Since Jenner demonstrated the effectiveness of cowpox to protect humans from smallpox in 1796, various attempts were made to eliminate smallpox on a regional scale. As early as 1803, the Spanish Crown organized a mission (the Balmis Expedition) to transport the vaccine to the Spanish colonies in the Americas and the Philippines, and establish mass vaccination programs there. The US Congress passed the Vaccine Act of 1813 to ensure that safe smallpox vaccine would be available to the American public. By about 1817, a very solid state vaccination program existed in the Dutch East Indies. In British India a program was launched to propagate smallpox vaccination, through Indian vaccinators, under the supervision of European officialshttp://www.smallpoxhistory.ucl.ac.uk/Other%20Asia/ongoingwork.htm. Nevertheless, British vaccination efforts in India, and in Burma in particular, were hampered by stubborn indigenous preference for inoculation and distrust of vaccination, despite tough legislation, improvements in the local efficacy of the vaccine and vaccine preservative, and education efforts[1]. By 1832, the federal government of the United States established a smallpox vaccination program for Native Americans[2]. In 1842, the United Kingdom banned inoculation, later progressing to mandatory vaccination. The British government introduced compulsory smallpox vaccination by an Act of Parliament in 1853. In the United States, from 1843 to 1855 first Massachusetts, and then other states required smallpox vaccination. Although some disliked these measures,[3] coordinated efforts against smallpox went on, and the disease continued to diminish in the wealthy countries. By 1897, smallpox had largely been eliminated from the United States[4]. In Northern Europe a number of countries had eliminated smallpox by 1900, and by 1914, the incidence in most industrialized countries had decreased to comparatively low levels. Vaccination continued in industrialized countries, until the mid to late 1970s as protection against reintroduction. Australia and New Zealand are two notable exceptions; neither experienced endemic smallpox and never vaccinated widely, relying instead on protection by distance and strict quarantines[5].
The first hemisphere-wide effort to eradicate smallpox was made in 1950 by the Pan American Health Organization[6]. The campaign was successful in eliminating smallpox from all American countries except Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, and Ecuador[5]. In 1958 Professor Viktor Zhdanov, Deputy Minister of Health for the USSR, called on the World Health Assembly to undertake a global initiative to eradicate smallpox. The proposal (Resolution WHA11.54) was accepted in 1959[7]. At this point, 2 million people were dying from smallpox every year. Overall, however, the progress towards eradication was disappointing, especially in Africa and in the Indian subcontinent. In 1966 an international team, the Smallpox Eradication Unit, was formed under the leadership of an American, Donald Henderson[7]. In 1967, the World Health Organization intensified the global smallpox eradication by contributing $2.4 million annually to the effort.
References
- ↑ "State of vaccination: the fight against smallpox in colonial Burma". Retrieved 2012-03-09.
- ↑ "Indian Health Manual (IHM) - Chapter 3 - Indian Health Program - Part 1 - General". Retrieved 2012-03-09.
- ↑ Hopkins, Donald R. (2002). The greatest killer: smallpox in history, with a new introduction. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-35168-8.
- ↑ "Sign In". Retrieved 2012-03-09.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Orenstein, Walter A.; Plotkin, Stanley A. (1999). Vaccines. Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders Co. ISBN 0-7216-7443-7.
- ↑ Rodrigues BA (1975). "Smallpox eradication in the Americas". Bulletin of the Pan American Health Organization. 9 (1): 53–68. PMID 167890.
|access-date=requires|url=(help) - ↑ 7.0 7.1 Fenner, Frank (1989). Smallpox and Its Eradication (History of International Public Health, No. 6). Geneva: World Health Organization. ISBN 92-4-156110-6.