It was generally agreed among those involved in the eradication campaign that, if smallpox eradication could be certified in India, the prospects for global eradication were very good. The largest of all of the 22 formal International Commissions, with 16 members from as many different countries, assembled in New Delhi to plan field visits. During these, each member was accompanied by national and WHO personnel who had either been members of the Indian National Certification Commission or were WHO epidemiologists who had worked in India during the pre-certification activities. Each small group then visited different areas in one or two states or union territories over a period of some two weeks before reassembling in New Delhi. I went to Himachal Pradesh and Rajasthan. It was a wonderful experience, travelling through countryside I had never been able to visit in previous trips to India, with temples and palaces and the planned city of Chandigarh. We stopped wherever there were local health authorities, at state, district, or municipal primary health care levels, who had assembled data on the gradual elimination of smallpox from their area of responsibility. I was also able to go to any place I chose; in Rajasthan I picked the most isolated and primitive place that could be imagined.

All members of the team then reassembled in New Delhi and the brief reports produced by various Commission members or teams were discussed. I had been appointed rapporteur for this session, so I was kept busy all Thursday and that evening preparing a draft report. In the main, this was accepted next day, and a redraft late that morning brought it to a state that was acceptable to all members, and we had a celebratory dinner that evening. The next day, the Commission assembled in the Health Minister's office and presented him with the declaration that smallpox had been eradicated from India.

I met with other members of the International Commission in Maputo, the capital of Mozambique, on 6–7 March to discuss our program; I acted as rapporteur. We split into four groups and arranged to meet again for final discussions in Zambia on 27–29 March. Over the intervening two weeks a WHO official, Dr Abou-Gareeb, and I, together with two European medical scientists who had been assisting the local health authorities prepare for our visit, travelled around Malawi. There was particular concern about a suspected case of smallpox in 1972 in a very remote area of the country. After a long drive over 'non-roads', in heavy rain, we arrived at the village and found Mary Joseph, the suspected case. She had facial pockmarks from an attack of smallpox in 1972, which had never been reported. We found three other children in a nearby village who also had facial pockmarks, probably also dating from 1972, but there was no evidence of any more recent cases. During the next few days we drove all over Malawi, calling in at villages and hospitals, and by 19 March I was able to begin my report. We then drove to Lusaka, the capital of Zambia, and met the other members of the Commission. After a meeting lasting two and a half days (as usual I acted as rapporteur) we agreed that on the evidence that we were able to obtain, smallpox transmission had been interrupted in all four countries.

The most populous country in southern Africa, since the end of World War II only variola minor had occurred there and it was regarded as a trivial disease. Because of their apartheid program, at the time South Africa was not represented on the World Health Assembly. Henderson went there in 1972 to persuade them to cooperate with the WHO program, but they did not establish a national smallpox eradication program. In October 1977, the Director-General of WHO wrote to the South African Minister of Health suggesting that I should visit them early in 1978, a proposal they accepted. The purpose of the visit was threefold: (1) to advise South African health officials on how to prepare a country report for submission to the Global Commission; (2) to emphasize the importance of chickenpox surveillance and make arrangements for the collection of specimens for laboratory examination by WHO Collaborating Centres; and (3) to obtain an impression of the recent history of smallpox and rural health services in South Africa (including in some of the 'black homelands').

I arrived in Johannesburg on 23 January and was met by Dr James Gear. The next day I visited the National Institute of Virology. I discussed the problem of destroying stocks of variola virus with Gear and the Institute Director, Professor O. W. Prozesky. On 24 January, I talked at length to members of the Health Department to work out an itinerary for my visit to South Africa and Namibia (Figure 10.2).

As I reported to WHO when I went to Geneva on 20 February:

Although the United Nations had terminated the South African mandate over Namibia in 1966, that country was still controlled and administered by South Africa, under the name 'South West Africa'. I spent five days there (see Figure 10.2), and met health officers and staff in hospitals and laboratories, obtained information on health services, especially the surveillance and control of communicable diseases, visited schools and conducted a limited vaccination scar survey.

WHO had suggested to the South African authorities that they should submit their national report on smallpox by 1 June, 1978. Since nothing had arrived by September, Dr Arita asked me to revisit South Africa briefly in mid-October. I flew there across the Indian Ocean and was met, as usual, by my good friend Dr James Gear. As well as stimulating Dr de Beer, the Secretary for Health, about getting their report to Geneva soon, I discussed at some length the disposal of their stocks of smallpox virus. I then went to Geneva, where I talked with Arita and Dr Nicole Grasset about the latter's proposed visit to South Africa in November to collect their national report.

In the 1970s, the People's Republic of China was not recognized by WHO, and it was not possible to arrange a visit by an International Commission. Dr Joel Breman was an American who served as a member of the Smallpox Eradication Unit from 1977–80. It was decided that he and I should visit China, make extensive enquiries and arrange for a national report on the situation to be sent to WHO in Geneva as soon as practicable. Guided by Dr Jiang Yu Tu, who had trained at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, we spent two and a half weeks there, travelled extensively around the country, and consulted with health authorities in Beijing. Detailed records (in Chinese) were sent to WHO, translated and examined by staff of the Smallpox Eradication Unit.

I had been selected to be a member of the last International Commission, that devoted to the certification of smallpox eradication in Somalia, where the last field case in the world had occurred in October 1977. This took place in October 1979. However, a preliminary medical clearance was required, and my physician had reported that I had an inguinal hernia, and because of the rough terrain and distance from medical facilities, WHO refused to allow me to take part, to my great disappointment. However, it had been decided that the certification of eradication from Somalia, and therefore Africa, and the world, was an event not to be missed, and special celebrations were planned to take place in Nairobi. Although the celebratory function was to be held on 26 October, I arrived there on 19 October, because there were also a number of other important meetings, among them a meeting of the four International Commissions that had worked in Africa in October 1979: Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia. I attended those meetings part of the time, but also met and talked with Henderson, Arita and Gordon Meiklejohn, who had a contract with WHO to prepare a draft Final Report of the Global Commission. I spent most of my spare time reading through Meiklejohn's report, but also met with Svetlana Marennikova and told her that on the grounds of genome mapping, I thought that her 'whitepox' viruses and most 'white mutants' of monkeypox virus that had been described by her laboratory were due to laboratory contamination with variola virus.

The celebratory function was held in the main hall of the Kenyatta Centre, a very impressive room, on Friday 26 October. There were speeches by the Director-General of WHO, Halfdan Mahler, and Jan Kostrzewski, who had chaired the meeting of the four International Commissions, followed by a press conference. Later, an ABC reporter came to my hotel room and taped a discussion for use in Australia. Then there were speeches by the Ministers of Health of Somalia and Kenya, some impressive Kenyan dances and a fine meal. I flew to Geneva on the Sunday for a meeting with the Director-General of WHO, in preparation for the Global Commission meeting in December and the World Health Assembly meeting in May 1980.