Smallpox

The first infectious disease to be eradicated

In 1977, Ali Maow Maalin, a hospital cook in the town of Merca in Somalia, happened to come in contact with two local patients who had contracted smallpox. 10 days later, he himself developed a fever - and was wrongly diagnosed first with malaria, then chickenpox.

Smallpox was already a pretty rare disease at that time, and many doctors would have missed the typical signs! But specialist staff finally diagnosed him correctly with smallpox and isolated him so that he would not pass the disease to anyone else.

Ali made a full recovery.

He was the last person in the world to have naturally acquired smallpox.