In partnership with Scientific American
Coronavirus: Lessons From Past Epidemics
The race for a vaccine against COVID19 recalls past efforts to conquer infectious diseases. But smallpox remains the only infectious disease to have been globally extinguished. Dr. Larry Brilliant was part of the World Health Organization’s smallpox eradication campaign in the 1970s. Today he is urging the U.S. to speed up the mobilization of medical supplies and building of field hospitals, and for public health experts to think outside the box, a hallmark of the effort that eradicated smallpox.
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