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match limited by state law. Radio-topia.

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From PRX. From PRX's Radio-topia,

1:12

this is Radio Diaries. I'm Joe

1:14

Richman. Humanity

1:20

doesn't have the best track record when

1:22

it comes to eradicating diseases. Dr.

1:25

Anthony Fauci recently warned Americans against

1:27

new, more dangerous COVID variants that

1:30

may emerge this summer. Polio is

1:32

still around, although health organizations worldwide

1:34

are hoping to finally eliminate the disease by

1:36

the end of this year. Measles is still

1:39

common in half of the world. The

1:41

flu still infects millions each year. And

1:43

there's the common cold. But

1:45

our story today is about the one disease that

1:48

has been successfully eradicated. Smallpox

1:52

was around for thousands of years. Patients

1:55

would develop painful sores all over their bodies.

1:57

The most deadly form of smallpox, called varicose veins. all

2:00

a major killed almost a third of the

2:02

people it infected and those who survived were

2:04

often scarred for life. In

2:07

the mid-20th century, the World Health Organization came

2:09

together to try to stamp out the disease

2:11

once and for all. Public

2:13

health workers around the world traveled from

2:16

country to country, tracking down cases and

2:18

vaccinating entire villages where the virus was

2:20

found. The last country

2:22

to have cases of the deadly form of

2:25

smallpox was Bangladesh. And by

2:27

the fall of 1975, public health workers there

2:29

thought they were finally at the finish line.

2:32

But off in a small remote village,

2:34

a toddler was developing the telltale white

2:36

spots. Today on the show,

2:39

the end of smallpox. Ruhimma.

2:48

What is your name? My name

2:50

is Ruhimma Bannu. My

2:54

name is Ruhimma Bannu. Growing

2:57

up, my village was called South Gurdalia. It

3:01

was close to the river. My

3:06

house was made of cattail leaves and

3:08

it had a mud floor. My

3:12

father was a laborer. He

3:14

caught fish and cut down trees with

3:16

a saw. My mother was a

3:18

housewife. I was their

3:20

first child and I was a dawd. When

3:26

I was one and a half years old, I had smallpox. My

3:35

name is Daniel Tarontola and

3:37

back in 1975, I

3:40

was a medical officer with

3:42

WHO assigned to Bangladesh for

3:45

the eradication of smallpox. My

3:48

name is Alan Schnur and I

3:50

was a WHO epidemiologist in

3:53

Bangladesh. The smallpox

3:55

eradication campaign had been an exhausting exercise.

3:57

Long travels by the end of the

3:59

day. by boat and in land

4:02

rovers and whatnot. And

4:04

so we were celebrating

4:06

the end of a

4:09

very difficult road. We

4:11

were at a meeting in Dhaka at

4:13

that time. They had a zero up

4:15

on the wall saying these are currently

4:18

the number of active smallpox cases in

4:20

Bangladesh. Good morning. And

4:22

we had informed the press. I

4:24

understand that you have an official statement

4:27

today with regard to Bangladesh. Yes

4:30

indeed. As far as can be

4:32

determined, we believe we have seen

4:34

the last case of

4:36

the deadliest form of smallpox, Varyola

4:39

Major. Well, thank

4:41

you very much, Dr. Henderson. I'd like to thank

4:43

my colleagues here in New York for... Then

4:45

we decided to celebrate and we organized

4:48

a party. And as

4:50

we were having the party, we

4:53

received three telexis,

4:55

two of them saying, you know,

4:58

wonderful achievements. Congratulations. And

5:01

then a third message came from our

5:03

team based in Bola Island in the

5:06

Bureau of Bengal. Give

5:09

me a second because I can read the

5:11

message. One

5:13

active smallpox case, date of detection, 14

5:15

November, 75 details follow. So

5:21

this was a pretty dramatic

5:23

setback. My

5:27

uncle got sick and I went

5:29

up to him and jumped on him and

5:32

started playing with these marks he had

5:34

on his body. On

5:37

that very night, my mother saw three

5:39

pimples break out in my forehead. And

5:42

by the morning, I had it all over

5:44

my body. Our

5:48

hall was to go to the home

5:50

where the case had been found

5:53

and check that indeed those facial

5:55

scars and other scars on our body

5:58

were being caused by smallpox. There

6:01

was some civil unrest at the time, so

6:03

they had announced that all WHO

6:06

international staff are restricted to

6:09

DACA. We got into

6:11

the Jeep and slouched down. I put some sort

6:13

of cloth over my head so we wouldn't see

6:15

that there was this international

6:17

WHO staff breaking the

6:19

regulations. We

6:22

then got on to the launch. The

6:25

next day we arrived in the morning and

6:27

took this very flimsy boat with no

6:29

life rafts across this huge river. And

6:32

then we had a walk up to the

6:34

household where the smallpox case was. My

6:39

mother saw a lot of people coming towards

6:41

us. It

6:43

looked like the waiting celebration. It was

6:46

so many people. So

6:48

my mother picked me up so that they wouldn't

6:50

see me. It

6:53

was the end of the day. So

6:56

it was fairly dark outside and there

6:58

was a chaos in

7:00

lantern inside their house, giving

7:03

a little light. We found

7:05

a woman sitting

7:07

there on a bed, bamboo bed,

7:09

holding a child. She

7:13

had white spots on the face,

7:15

on the palms, on the soles,

7:18

on the legs and arms. She

7:21

began to cry and I took

7:23

a picture of her then crying and the

7:26

mother holding her in her arms. They

7:29

have that photo of us. I was little

7:32

and I was afraid of all the people.

7:35

My mother was shocked. She couldn't see

7:37

a single word. We

7:40

explained to her what the procedure would be,

7:42

that we would have to isolate

7:45

the child in her home, that

7:47

there would be guards around, that visitors

7:49

would be limited. But we would have

7:52

to be vaccinated. They

7:54

set up three camps around our house

7:57

and they paid our neighbors to watch us so

7:59

that