I had been in Geneva early in November 1978 at the fifth meeting of the Consultation on Monkeypox and Related Viruses, and took the opportunity to discuss the arrangements for the First Meeting of the Global Commission with Isao Arita and Joel Breman. Then, after a week in England and a visit to Nairobi for meetings of SCOPE (see Chapter 9), I went back to Geneva for the First Meeting of the Global Commission. As for the Consultation, this was a large committee, with 20 members, eight WHO advisers, eight WHO Regional Office staff and 13 WHO Headquarters staff, including nine from the Smallpox Eradication Unit. I acted as Chairman, except when I reported on the situation in South Africa and Namibia, Jan Kowscrzewski of Poland was Vice-Chairman, and Arita served as secretary.

We met for four days and considered the numerous reports that had been received from International Commissions and from and about individual countries which had been listed in categories two, three and four (above). In the majority of cases, eradication was certified; reports by International Commissions were expected in 1979 for 10 countries, mostly in Africa, and additional information was sought from five countries: China, Democratic Kampuchea (Cambodia), Iraq, Madagascar and South Africa. In addition, all countries which had not been asked to provide detailed information—for example, all countries in Europe and the Americas—were asked to provide formal statements detailing when the last known case of smallpox had occurred in their country.

On human monkeypox, the Global Commission concluded that, although four cases of possible person-to-person infection had occurred between 1970 and 1979, this disease 'did not constitute a threat to the permanence of smallpox eradication', nor did the Commission regard the presence of human monkeypox in a country to be a justification for continuation of vaccination.

Noting that the number of laboratories holding variola virus had been reduced from 76 (in 1976) to 10, it recommended that these holdings should be destroyed or transferred to one of the two WHO Collaborating Centres and asked for a report from a group of scientific experts at the 1979 meeting. The Commission also discussed and made recommendations about the cessation of vaccination, vaccine reserves, surveillance after global certification, and documentation of the Smallpox Eradication program.