Henderson, Donald A. 1928-

DIRECTOR OF THE WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION
PROGRAM TO ERADICATE SMALLPOX

A Rare Award.

In 1976 the United Nations (UN) World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva received the rarely given Albert Lasker Public Health Service Award for "the imminent eradication of smallpox—the first and only disease ever to be eradicated from the earth." When Dr. Donald A. Henderson, the director of the organization's global smallpox eradication program, accepted the award for the UN agency, he said that only two known smallpox cases existed—in Somalia. Final confirmation of eradication required atleast two years of search in every infected area in the world. A few years later the world became free of this dread disease.

A Global Eradication Program.

Henderson was born in Ohio, graduated from the University of Rochester Medical School, and joined HEW's disease-control center, where he worked to control such diseases as...

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