Smallpox and the World Health Organization's Role in Vaccine Campaigns

In 19 59, the soviet unions proposal was re introduced as a voluntery global vaccine campaign. Countries where smallpox was endemic were asked to institute mass vaccine programmes with a goal of vaccinating 80% of their populations. At that point, smallpox was being reported in 63 countries, and together, those countries reported 77 thousand, 555 cases of the disease. But it became obvious really fast that that number was way, way too low.