Donald Henderson

Donald Ainslie Henderson ( born September 7, 1928 in Lakewood, Ohio) is an American physician (epidemiology ), who is known for his for his leading role in campaigns of WHO in the 1960s and 1970s to eradicate smallpox.

Life

Henderson studied at Oberlin College ( BA 1950) and medicine at the University of Rochester, where in 1954 he received his MD degree. This was followed by specialist training ( internship, residency ) at the Mary Imogene Bassett Hospital in Cooperstown, New York. In 1960 he received his Masters in Public Health (MPH ) from Johns Hopkins University ( School of Hygiene and Public Health). 1955 to 1957 and 1960 to 1966 he was ( at that time Communicable Disease Centre CDC), where he led a group to monitor cases of smallpox at the National Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. From 1966 he headed the global WHO program for the eradication of smallpox ( which were then used in Brazil, Africa and South Asia ) and moved to Geneva. Under the program, he was involved in the fighting of the last outbreak of the disease in Europe in Yugoslavia in 1972 and in the fight against major smallpox epidemic in India in 1974. He was also instrumental in helping to bring on behalf of the WHO global immunization program on the way, the vaccinated children against polio, among other things. 1977, the last case of smallpox was reported in Somalia and the disease is now considered extinct.

1977 until his retirement in 1990 he was dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. In 1998, he was the founding director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Civilian Biodefense Strategies. He also had high-level positions as a consultant to the U.S. government, for example, 1991 to 1993 as Associate Director for Biology (Life Sciences ) of the Office of Science and Technology Policy at the U.S. president and then from 1993 to 1995 as a senior scientific adviser to the Department of Health and Human Services (HSS ) and Deputy Assistant Secretary of Health and Head of the Council of Health Preparedness, where he worked on, among other things with the defense against bioterrorism.

In 1976 he received the Ernst Jung Prize, 1978, the Public Welfare Medal of the National Academy of Sciences, 1983, Gairdner Foundation International Award, the 1986 National Medal of Science, the 1988 Japan Prize, 1994, the Albert B. Sabin Gold Medal, 1995 John Stearns Medal of the New York Academy of Medicine, 1996, Edward Jenner Medal of the Royal Society of Medicine and 2002, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He is much honorary doctorates and honorary member of the New York Academy of Medicine.