Lifesavers · No. 02
Smallpox eradication
Smallpox killed about 300 million people in the 20th century alone, and in 1980 became the first human disease ever deliberately wiped from the Earth.
The figure is the disease's toll in one century; eradication means that toll is now zero.
How it saves lives
There is no cure for smallpox, so the campaign worked by finding every outbreak and vaccinating a ring of people around it until the virus had nowhere left to go. Because humans were the only host, cutting off transmission everywhere meant the virus simply ran out of people and vanished.
The story
For at least three thousand years smallpox was one of humanity's great killers, scarring and blinding those it did not kill. In the 20th century alone it took hundreds of millions of lives. A global effort of thousands of health workers, chasing the last cases across deserts and villages, ended it. On 8 May 1980 the World Health Assembly declared the world free of smallpox, the only human disease ever eradicated.
From the record
killing 300 million people in the 20th century alone
From the record
The world and all its peoples have won freedom from smallpox.
Asked often
How many people did smallpox kill?
The WHO states smallpox killed about 300 million people in the 20th century alone, and it had plagued humanity for at least 3,000 years before that.
When was smallpox eradicated?
The 33rd World Health Assembly declared smallpox eradicated on 8 May 1980. It remains the only human disease ever eradicated.
The next one is being invented now.
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