Albert Lasker
Public Service Award
World Health Organization
For its historic achievement in the practical eradication of smallpox from the Earth.
Smallpox, mankind's most feared and devastating infection, has, over the centuries, killed, blinded, and scarred countless millions, and frequently has changed the course of history itself.
The war against this deadly, contagious viral disease began in England in 1796, when Edward Jenner gave the first vaccination to an eight-year-old boy.
Today, smallpox has been wiped out in all except one country in the world, and there the disease is almost conquered.
This historic achievement—accomplished within the past ten years—involved the mobilization of personnel supported and directed by the World Health Organization, to work at the request of individual governments throughout the world. A global network was organized for surveillance, research, and laboratory capabilities. Conferences at national, regional, and grassroots levels were held to implement strategies. Dedicated health worker teams were dispatched to the most remote and inaccessible villages throughout the world, to search out and isolate cases, and to vaccinate contacts. In short, every weapon in the armament of modern science and public health services was employed in this war against an international and insidious enemy.
While surveillance must continue for the next two years to insure that the eradication of smallpox is permanent, we salute this historic milestone as one of the most brilliant accomplishments in medical history.
We hope that it will provide an example of how, with coordinated international effort, many of the other health problems that afflict mankind can be successfully attacked.
For the inspiration and unparalleled example of the dedicated workers around the world who have labored tirelessly to seek and contain, one by one, each of the thousands of smallpox outbreaks—and have now practically succeeded—this Special Albert Lasker Public Health Service Award is given.