Post summary (feel free to suggest edits!): Smallpox was confirmed as eradicated on December 9th, 1979. Our World in Data has a great explorer on its history and how eradication was achieved.
Smallpox killed ~300 million people in the 20th century alone, and is the only human disease to have been completely eradicated. It also led to the first ever vaccine, after Edward Jenner demonstrated that exposure to cowpox—a related but less severe disease—protected against smallpox. In the 19th and 20th centuries, further improvements were made to the vaccine. In 1959, the WHO launched a global program to eradicate smallpox, including efforts to vaccinate (particularly those in contact with infected individuals - ‘ring vaccination’), isolate those infected, and monitor spread. They eventually contained the virus primarily to India (86% of cases were there in 1974), and with a final major vaccination campaign, dropped cases there to zero in 1976.
(If you’d like to see more summaries of top EA and LW forum posts, check out the Weekly Summaries series.)
Post summary (feel free to suggest edits!):
Smallpox was confirmed as eradicated on December 9th, 1979. Our World in Data has a great explorer on its history and how eradication was achieved.
Smallpox killed ~300 million people in the 20th century alone, and is the only human disease to have been completely eradicated. It also led to the first ever vaccine, after Edward Jenner demonstrated that exposure to cowpox—a related but less severe disease—protected against smallpox. In the 19th and 20th centuries, further improvements were made to the vaccine. In 1959, the WHO launched a global program to eradicate smallpox, including efforts to vaccinate (particularly those in contact with infected individuals - ‘ring vaccination’), isolate those infected, and monitor spread. They eventually contained the virus primarily to India (86% of cases were there in 1974), and with a final major vaccination campaign, dropped cases there to zero in 1976.
(If you’d like to see more summaries of top EA and LW forum posts, check out the Weekly Summaries series.)