D.A. Henderson, an American public-health official who led the international campaign to eradicate smallpox in one of the greatest scientific endeavors of the 20th century, died on Friday. He was 82 years old.
Henderson's death was announced Saturday by the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, where he taught as a public-health professor.
When Henderson, then a 39-year-old epidemiologist, became the first chief of the World Health Organization's smallpox-eradication unit in 1967, the virus killed an estimated two million people every year on three continents. By the end of his tenure there 10 years later, the disease was all but wiped out worldwide. The WHO certified in 1980 smallpox had been completely eradicated—a first in human history. Its absence spared an estimated 60 million lives that would've been lost during the almost four decades since then.
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