Smallpox Eradication (1967 to 1980)

The World Health Organization led global campaign to eradicate smallpox by vaccination and case surveillance, intensified from 1967 after decades of prior national efforts (the World Health Organization dates its own Smallpox Eradication Programme from 1966), and completed by 1980. It rested on Cold War era cooperation between the United States and the Soviet Union to fund and run the effort. The last naturally occurring case was recorded in Merca, Somalia, in 1977, and the 33rd World Health Assembly formally declared global eradication on 8 May 1980, following a December 1979 certification by an independent Global Commission. It remains the first, and to date only, human disease eradicated by deliberate intervention.