The Last Victim of Smallpox

In the summer of 1978, the World Health Organization stood on the brink of a remarkable achievement—smallpox, the disease that terrorized people for three thousand years and killed millions, had been eradicated through a rigorous mass vaccination program lasting 10 years. The last reported case of smallpox was in October the previous year, ten months ago. A 23-year-old cook named Ali Maow Maalin, working at a hospital in Merca, Somalia, had come down with the disease. Maalin was unvaccinated but made a miraculous recovery. A team of doctors tracked down the vectors responsible for the outbreak leading to further vaccination of more than fifty thousand people. A sign outside the Catherine de Barnes isolation hospital in 1978 where the last victim of smallpox was admitted. Image credit: Birminghamlive Donald Henderson, the American epidemiologist who led WHO’s smallpox eradication campaign, and his team were elated at the thought that there would never be another case of the horrendous disease. But they made no official announcement, until at least two years had passed to make sure that smallpox was really gone. Then, the disease struck again for one last time. The victim was Janet Parker, a 40-year-old medical photographer, who worked in the anatomy department at Birmingham Medical School, in Birmingham, England. On August 11, Parker developed a fever accompanied by headache and pains in her muscles. Within days her body was covered with rashes and ugly red spots. Her doctor told Parker that she had chickenpox and there was nothing to be worried about. But as the days passed, the blistering pustules became larger and her conditions worsened until she could no longer stand unaided. On 20 August she was admitted to Catherine-de-Barnes Isolation Hospital in Solihull where the dreaded diagnosis was made—she had Variola major , the most serious type of smallpox. Janet Parker on her wedding day.