Coincidentally with the later certification visits, just described, I was involved with the larger committees set up by the Director-General of WHO, Dr Mahler, to consolidate the picture and ultimately to produce a report which could be presented to the Governing Body of WHO, the World Health Assembly, hopefully at their meeting in May 1980.

Following the usual WHO pattern, the Director-General initially called together a group of experts who might participate in the large committee as a 'Consultation' on the Worldwide Certification of Smallpox Eradication, to be held in October 1977. I spent the day before the meeting discussing the situation with Dr Henderson and Dr Arita, and they outlined the position and suggested that I should chair both the Consultation and the subsequent Global Commission.

The next day I was 'elected' Chairman of the Consultation; the participants included 17 experts on epidemiology, virology and public health from 15 countries: three from Africa, three from the Americas (including Henderson, who had resigned from WHO earlier in 1977), four from Asia, one from Australia and six from Europe, plus eight WHO advisers, from Geneva and Regional offices, and five other members of the Smallpox Eradication Unit, of which Isao Arita had succeeded Henderson as Chief. Unlike the meetings of the smaller WHO committees with which I had been involved, this meeting, and subsequent meetings of the Global Commission, adopted the United Nations convention of having all discussion translated into each of the six UN official languages: Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish, although all papers were in English and most speakers used English in their presentations.

The aim was to reach, as quickly as possible, a situation at which it could be certified that smallpox had been eradicated globally. After four days of intensive discussions it was decided to divide the countries of the world into four categories:

Category 1—those countries requiring formal certification by international commissions of experts, who would visit the countries concerned and assess their smallpox-free status by examining records and making field visits to determine whether surveillance activities would have been adequate to detect a case of smallpox if one had occurred during the previous two years.

Category 2—those countries requiring the visit of selected experts to verify and document the smallpox incidence since 1960, the last known outbreak and control measures employed, and procedures for handling suspected cases.

Category 3—certification through submission of detailed country reports.

Category 4—official statements by countries declaring their smallpox-free status during the previous two years and signed by government health authorities.

It was planned to have a meeting of the successor to this Consultation, the Global Commission for the Certification of Smallpox Eradication, in December 1978. The next two years were largely devoted to collecting the material outlined above in time for what was hoped would be the final meeting of the Global Commission in December 1979.