May 8, 1980
The World Health Organization “Declares solemnly that the world and its peoples have won freedom from smallpox, which was a most devastating disease sweeping in epidemic form through many countries since earliest time, leaving death, blindness and disfigurement in its wake and which only a decade ago was rampant in Africa, Asia and South America.” As recently as 1967, WHO estimated that 15 million people contracted the disease and that two million died that year. Because of the disease’s eradication, by 1986 routine vaccination had ceased in all countries.
