The Emergency campaign for smallpox eradication from Somalia (1977-1979)--revisited

Abstract

The historical significance of smallpox eradication from Somalia lies in the fact that the country was the last to record the last endemic smallpox case in the world. Before 1977 the programme was mismanaged. In the mid-1970s, the programme was plagued with concealment. Confirmation of smallpox outbreak in Mogadishu in September 1976 delayed global smallpox eradication. The Government maintained that there was no ongoing smallpox transmission in the country after the Mogadishu outbreak and frustrated independent attempts to verify its claim. In February 1977 the Government allowed World Health Organization (WHO) epidemiologists to search, unhindered, for smallpox outside Mogadishu. Soon widespread smallpox transmission was detected. The Government appealed for international support. The strategy to stop the smallpox transmission was based on surveillance and containment. The WHO took the leading role of the campaign which, in spite of the Somalia/Ethiopia war of 1977/78, culminated in the eradication of smallpox from the country. Somalia was certified smallpox-free on 19 October 1979.