Smallpox eradication. Destruction of variola virus stocks.

1. The global eradication of smallpox was confirmed in 1980 (resolution WHA33.3). From 1981 to 1986, WHO undertook a programme to implement the post-eradication policies contained in the 1979 report of the Global Commission for the Certification of Smallpox Eradication and endorsed by the Health Assembly in resolution WHA33.4. Progress was reviewed year by year from 1981 to 1984 by the WHO Committee on Orthopoxvirus Infections. In 1986 this Committee reviewed the implementation of the 19 recommendations on post-eradication policy endorsed by the Health Assembly in 1980, and made recommendations to the Director-General on the policies that should be followed by WHO. In conformity with recommendations 9 and 10 of the Global Commission endorsed in resolution WHA33.4, all known stocks of smallpox virus were consolidated in two WHO collaborating centres during the mid-1980s, one in the Russian Federation and the other in the United States of America, to assure biosafety and security. The Committee also recommended that the remaining stocks of live variola virus be destroyed.