Dr Donald Henderson
Epidemiologist who helped eradicate smallpox
BORN SEPTEMBER 7, 1928 - DIED AUGUST 19, 2016 AGED 87
IN 1966 when the World Health Organisation (WHO) appointed Dr Henderson to lead its project to stamp out smallpox, few gave him much chance of success.
At the time the disease was still endemic in Africa and Asia and killed one in three of those who became infected.
Prior to that it had been one of the world’s deadliest diseases, often referred to as the “red plague” or “speckled monster”, killing 300 million people in the 20th century alone.
Yet within 11 years the self-confessed disease detective had eradicated smallpox by focusing on isolating outbreaks of the disease and systematically vaccinating people, rather than a mass vaccination programme.
His breakthrough has been hailed as the “greatest achievement in the history of medicine”.
Born in Ohio, Henderson was still a teenager when a smallpox outbreak occurred in New York City in 1947.
The outbreak got him interested in the disease and how it could be stopped. After receiving his medical degree from New York’s University of Rochester in 1954 he joined the CDC, then called the Communicable Disease Center.
He rose to become chief of the virus surveillance department before leading the African and then global smallpox eradication campaigns.
After his work for the WHO, Henderson went on to serve as science and bioterrorism adviser to three US presidents, as well as holding a range of other academic and medical posts.
He was also the author of Smallpox: The Death Of A Disease in 2009 and was given the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honour, in 2002.
He died of complications from a broken hip and is survived by his wife Nana and three children.