William Foege

An American physician and epidemiologist who devised the surveillance and containment strategy credited with the global eradication of smallpox. While working as a medical missionary in Nigeria in 1966, Foege developed a ring vaccination approach that concentrated limited vaccine supplies on people who had been in contact with confirmed smallpox cases rather than attempting to vaccinate entire populations, a strategy that proved decisive when it was adopted worldwide by the World Health Organization's eradication program; smallpox became the first infectious disease ever eradicated, in 1980. Foege directed the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 1977 to 1983, under Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, and continued afterward to play a leading role in expanding childhood immunization programs across the developing world.