TODAY in Geneva, the World Health Organisation will officially declare smallpox eradicated from the Earth. It will be the culmination of an astonishingly successful 22-year programme by the WHO, which included, in the two years since the last endemic case was reported in Somalia, the unclaimed $1,000 reward offered for new cases reported (below). But could smallpox ever recur? Peter Newmark examines the evidence.
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Smallpox: Gone for good?. Nature 285, 62 (1980). https://doi.org/10.1038/285062a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/285062a0