Dr. William Foege, Public Health Pioneer, Passes Away
ATLANTA — Dr. William Foege, a significant figure in one of the major public health successes — the eradication of smallpox — has passed away.
Foege died on Saturday in Atlanta at the age of 89, as reported by the Task Force for Global Health, an organization he co-founded.
Standing at 6-foot-7, Foege was a notable presence in the field of public health. He was not only a brilliant medical doctor but also had a remarkable ability to tackle infectious diseases with a calm and collected approach.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, he served as the director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, taking on other vital leadership roles in global health initiatives over the years.
But perhaps his most outstanding contribution was his role in combating smallpox, which, for centuries, had been one of the deadliest diseases, claiming about one-third of those it infected and leaving survivors marked by painful scars.
During Foege’s early medical career, vaccination campaigns for smallpox were well underway, and the disease had already been eliminated in the United States. However, outbreaks still lingered in other parts of the world, and the momentum for international eradication efforts was waning.
As a medical missionary in Nigeria during the 1960s, Foege and his team devised a “ring containment” strategy. This approach involved identifying every smallpox case and vaccinating those they had come into contact with, effectively containing outbreaks.
This strategy was rooted in the reality that there wasn’t enough vaccine to immunize everyone, a point Foege elaborated on in his 2011 book, “House on Fire,” which discusses the smallpox eradication initiative.
It proved to be essential in the global campaign against smallpox, leading to its ultimate eradication. The last naturally occurring case was reported in Somalia in 1977, and in 1980, the World Health Organization officially declared smallpox eradicated.
Dr. Tom Frieden, who regularly consulted with Foege, remarked, “If you look at the simple metric of who has saved the most lives, he is right up there with the pantheon. Smallpox eradication has prevented hundreds of millions of deaths.”
Foege was born on March 12, 1936, into a family where his father was a Lutheran minister. He became fascinated with medicine at the age of 13 while working at a drugstore in Colville, Washington.
He earned his medical degree from the University of Washington in 1961 and later obtained a master’s in public health from Harvard in 1965.
Foege directed the CDC from 1977 to 1983 and subsequently took on various global health leadership positions, including executive director at The Carter Center and senior fellow at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
In 2012, he was awarded the Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama, the highest civilian honor in the nation. During an honorary degree presentation in 2016, Duke University’s President Richard Brodhead referred to him as “the Father of Global Health.”
Dr. Patrick O’Carroll, CEO of the Task Force for Global Health, stated, “Bill Foege had an unflagging commitment to improving the health of people across the world, through powerful, purpose-driven coalitions applying the best science available. We try to honor that commitment in every one of our programs, every day.”
