Overview
- The Task Force for Global Health confirmed he died on Jan. 24 at his home in Atlanta at age 89.
- While working in Nigeria in the 1960s, he devised ring containment by tracing cases and vaccinating contacts, helping end smallpox, which WHO declared eradicated in 1980 after the last case in 1977.
- He led the CDC from 1977 to 1983, then helped build global coalitions through the Task Force for Child Survival, The Carter Center and the Gates Foundation.
- He persuaded Merck in 1988 to donate Mectizan to fight river blindness, a model for large-scale drug donations against neglected diseases.
- Public-health leaders credit smallpox eradication with preventing hundreds of millions of deaths, underscoring the scale of his legacy.