Smallpox experience

摘要

The World Health Organization (WHO) smallpox eradication campaign was launched in 1967 and resulted in the last known natural case in 1977, leading to formal certification and declaration of its eradication in 1979 and 1980, respectively. When smallpox was officially certified as eradicated, an agreement was reached under which all remaining stocks of the virus would either be destroyed or passed to secure laboratories. In view of the potential danger of reintroduction of smallpox from variola virusstocks held in laboratories, no more than four WHO Collaborating Centres should be approved as suitable for the storage of and work with variola virus in accordance with WHO safety standards. Since the beginning of 1984, stocks of variola virus have beenretained in only the two WHO Collaborating Centres in the Russian Federation and the United States, each of which possesses a high-security biological containment laboratory. The World Health Assembly resolution WHA60.1 (2007) requests WHO to maintain biennial inspections of the two authorised repositories in order to 'ensure that conditions of storage of the virus and of research conducted in the laboratories meet the highest requirements for biosafety and biosecurity'.