Inscription : Records of the Smallpox Eradication Programme of the World Health Organization
Year : 2017
Owner/Custodian : World Health Organization

In 1966, the 19th World Health Assembly of the World Health Organization (WHO) requested that the Director-General of WHO launch a global programme to eradicate smallpox, a disease that had afflicted humanity for millenia. In 1980 the 33rd World Health Assembly confirmed the conclusions of the Global Commission for the Certification of the Eradication of Smallpox, stating that smallpox had been eradicated throughout the world and that a return of the virus was improbable. 
 
The success of the Smallpox Eradication programme remains one of the great global achievements in the history of public health. In terms of eradication of a disease afflicting humanity, it is a unique achievement. The records of the Smallpox Eradication Programme provide an extraordinarily significant documentary record of the decisions and actions taken in the effort to eradicate this disease, and as such are of both historical and current value, in light of ongoing efforts to eradicate other diseases. 
 
Both the preservation and the promotion of the records of the Smallpox Eradication Programme of the World Health Organization are crucially important, and inclusion in the Memory of the World register would further both these aims.