India
1977

Informal dinner for International Commission members and WHO staff at the home of Dennis Olsen, SEARO administrative officer, Apr 1977

Drs Viktor Mikhailovich Zhdanov (Commission member, USSR) and DA Henderson (WHO adviser, USA) celebrate the certification of the eradication of smallpox in India.

Dr Zhdanov (1914-1987), as USSR Deputy Minister of Health (1955-60), proposed to the World Health Assembly in 1958 that WHO should undertake global smallpox eradication. As Director of the Ivanovsky Institute for Virology from 1961, he trained numerous epidemiologists who served as WHO staff and consultants for the SEP.