Elucian Islands - Events

Smallpox: The Death of a Disease

Location: Amphitheatre
Date: Tuesday 3rd November
Time: 6pm GMT / 10am PST
Contact: Joanna Wombat

For more than 3000 years, hundreds of millions of people have died or been left permanently scarred or blind by the relentless, incurable disease called smallpox. In 1967, Dr. D.A. Henderson became director of a worldwide campaign to eliminate this disease from the face of the earth.

On November 3rd at 10am PDT, Dr Henderson will join Nature Publishing Group in the virtual world Second Life to tell his personal story of how he led the World Health Organization's campaign to eradicate smallpox - the only disease in history to have been deliberately eliminated.

In his new book on which this lecture is based, Dr. Henderson tells how the gargantuan international effort involved more than straightforward mass vaccination. He and his staff had to cope with civil wars, floods, impassable roads, and refugees as well as formidable bureaucratic and cultural obstacles, shortages of local health personnel and meager budgets. Countries across the world joined in the effort; the United States and the Soviet Union worked together through the darkest cold war days; and professionals from more than 70 nations served as WHO field staff. On October 26, 1976, the last case of smallpox occurred. The disease that annually had killed two million people or more had been vanquished - and in just over ten years.

The story did not end there. Dr. Henderson recounts the continuing struggle over whether to destroy the remaining virus in the two laboratories still that held it. Then came the startling discovery that the Soviet Union had been experimenting with smallpox virus as a biological weapon and producing it in large quantities. The threat of its possible use by a rogue nation or a terrorist has had to be taken seriously and Dr. Henderson has been a central figure in plans for coping with it. New methods for mass smallpox vaccination were so successful that he sought to expand the program of smallpox immunization to include polio, measles, whooping cough, diphtheria, and tetanus vaccines. That program now reaches more than four out of five children in the world and is eradicating poliomyelitis.

In this live event, Dr Henderson will talk about all of this and more, for about 45 minutes and then take questions from the audience. The event is free and open to all, so please do come along to hear this fascinating story. To attend the event, you will need to register with Second Life. Registration is free and easy: to get started, go to Second Life or read our Beginner's Guide.