Dr. William Foege, leader in smallpox eradication, dies
[January 26, 2026]
By MIKE STOBBE
ATLANTA (AP) — Dr. William Foege, a leader of one of humanity's greatest
public health victories — the global eradication of smallpox — has died.
Foege died Saturday in Atlanta at the age of 89, according to the Task
Force for Global Health, which he co-founded.
The 6-foot-7 inch Foege literally stood out in the field of public
health. A whip-smart medical doctor with a calm demeanor, he had a canny
knack for beating back infectious diseases.
He was director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and later held other key leadership
roles in campaigns against international health problems.
But his greatest achievement came before all that, with his work on
smallpox, one of the most lethal diseases in human history. For
centuries, it killed about one-third of the people it infected and left
most survivors with deep scars on their faces from the pus-filled
lesions.
Smallpox vaccination campaigns were well established by the time Foege
was a young doctor. Indeed, it was no longer seen in the United States.
But infections were still occurring elsewhere, and efforts to stamp them
out were stalling.
Working as a medical missionary in Nigeria in the 1960s, Foege and his
colleagues developed a "ring containment" strategy, in which a smallpox
outbreak was contained by identifying each smallpox case and vaccinating
everyone who the patients might come into contact with.
The method relied heavily on quick detective work and was born out of
necessity. There simply wasn't enough vaccine available to immunize
everyone, Foege wrote in "House on Fire," his 2011 book about the
smallpox eradication effort.
It worked, and became pivotal in helping rid the world of smallpox for
good. The last naturally occurring case was seen in Somalia in 1977. In
1980, the World Health Organization declared smallpox eradicated from
the Earth.
"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," said former CDC director Dr. Tom
Frieden, who consulted with Foege regularly.
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President Barack Obama awards the Medal of Freedom to Dr. William
Foege, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, who helped lead the effort to eradicate smallpox, during
a ceremony in the East Room of the White House in Washington,
Tuesday, May 29, 2012. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak, File)
 Foege was born March 12, 1936. His
father was a Lutheran minister, but he became interested in medicine
at 13 while working at a drugstore in Colville, Washington.
He got his medical degree from the University of Washington in 1961
and a master's in public health from Harvard in 1965.
He was director of the Atlanta-based CDC from 1977 to 1983, then
held other international public health leadership roles, including
stints as executive director at The Carter Center and senior fellow
at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
In 2012, President Barack Obama presented Foege with the Medal of
Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor. In 2016, while
awarding Foege an honorary degree, Duke University President
President Richard Brodhead called him "the Father of Global Health."
“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,” Task Force for Global Health
CEO Dr. Patrick O’Carroll said in a statement. "We try to honor that
commitment in every one of our programs, every day.”
___
Jack Dura contributed to this report from Bismarck, North Dakota.
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