Smallpox: last case

1 May 2010
Reading time:
Since smallpox was only transferred from person to person, the last infected person was the last link in the chain of transmission and represented the end of the disease in a country.

 

WHO
© Credits

"The last cases in countries considered endemic in 1967", exhibition display panel in Geneva for World Health Day, 1975.

WHO/John F. Wickett
Last case of smallpox
© Credits

Ali Maow Maalin, the last case of smallpox in Somalia, 1978.

WHO/Gary T. Presthus
© Credits

Prisca Elias, the last case of smallpox in Botswana, with a Surveillance Officer of Smallpox Eradication Programme, 1974.

WHO
© Credits

Kausar Parveen, the last case of smallpox in Pakistan, 1974.

WHO/Daniel J. M. Tarantola
© Credits

Rahima Banu, the last case of smallpox in Bangladesh, 1976.

WHO
© Credits

Amina Salat, the last case of smallpox in Ethiopia, 1976.

WHO
© Credits

Parchment signed in Geneva on 9 December 1979, by the members of the Global Commission for Certification of Smallpox Eradication.

/