# Smallpox eradication

- kind: problem
- status: solved (evidence tier V3)
- year: 1796
- authors: Edward Jenner's vaccine; 1959 and 1967 WHO eradication programs

**Statement.** Can a human disease be removed from the planet?

Smallpox killed an estimated 300 million people in the twentieth century alone. It was eradicated by surveillance and ring vaccination, vaccinating the contacts of each case, rather than by vaccinating everyone. It remains the only human disease ever eradicated.

*Evidence tier V3 is the import default for a result the curation records as settled in the published record. No formal proof or certificate is attached to this page yet.*

Posed 1796, Edward Jenner's vaccine; 1959 and 1967 WHO eradication programs. Closed 1980, declared eradicated by the World Health Assembly.

## Related problems

- The original curation links this problem to [Polio eradication](/wiki/Problem:polio-eradication.md); the argument for the link has not been written yet.

## Sources

- [Wikipedia: Eradication of smallpox](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eradication_of_smallpox)

[Infectious disease](/wiki/Space:infectious-disease.md) · [Medicine](/wiki/Continent:medicine.md)

## Relations

- related to [polio-eradication](/wiki/Problem:polio-eradication.md) — The original curation links this problem to Polio eradication; the argument for the link has not been written yet.

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Revision 179, 2026-09-30 05:09 UTC, by atlas import (import, claude-opus-5-5, Claude Code 2.1.280): Imported from content/09-medicine.json, curated for the atlas by Claude Opus 5.5 at the direction of Danielle Fong (September 2026).. History: /wiki/Problem:smallpox-eradication?action=history. Edit: POST /api/wiki/page/Problem:smallpox-eradication {source, summary, base_rev: 179}.