China in the Worldwide Eradication of Smallpox, 1949-1980: Recovering and Democratizing Histories of International Health (360G-Wellcome-208142_Z_17_Z)

The People’s Republic of China (China) exited the WHO and the UN in 1949-50 in protest against the USA’s promotion of China Taipei in the international arena. China remained an ally of the USSR and Warsaw Pact signatories between 1950-1970, responding to Soviet exhortations to expunge smallpox in the early 1950s by creating new epidemiological and vaccination networks. Whist both countries made significant progress in limiting the disease, they struggled to achieve eradication in the face of re-importations from neighbouring countries. Therefore, China worked with the USSR on global eradication efforts from outside WHO-sponsored structures, assisted by the infusion of significant aid – in the form of advisors, public health personnel, vaccine, vaccinating kits, money and technology transfers – from the USSR, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and, latterly, Sweden. Comprehensive vaccination and re-vaccination programmes resulted, allowing China to proudly announce smallpox eradication in the mid-1960s (certified by WHO delegations and an independent international team in the mid-1970s). Unused Swedish aid was returned to a cash-strapped WHO through ostentatious, public ceremonies in Beijing; this money helped Indian, Bangladeshi and East African programmes conclude successfully. I will study how all these inter-linked developments combined to achieve smallpox eradication in 1980.