on dec. 9, 1979, the global commission for the certification of smallpox eradication declared its job complete. this marked the end of a scourge that lasted thousands of years and killed more people than all the wars in recorded history.
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for example, connaught laboratories , part of the university of toronto until 1972, helped establish an international freeze-dried smallpox vaccine standard. connaught also produced millions of doses of freeze-dried vaccine for the eradication campaign, provided through the canadian government, and served as the international vaccine reference lab for the western hemisphere. in the latter role, connaught scientists, most notably dr. paul fenje and dr. robert j. wilson, worked with smallpox vaccine producers in latin america to improve vaccine quality and effectiveness.
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while the smallpox eradication program took a little over a decade to complete, progress has been slower with polio eradication over the past 35 years, although confirmed global cases have dropped from 300,000 per year in 1988, to just 12 as this is written. as was true for smallpox eradication, the motivation for the polio eradication program has been the desire to reduce deaths, and especially polio’s crippling effects in children, and to ultimately eliminate the need for polio immunization and its ongoing expense, particularly in the developing world.