PART 7.1

PART 7.1

In early 1974, smallpox outbreaks were appearing in areas of India that had been smallpox-free for months. After a week of plotting the epidemic with pushpins on hand-drawn maps, a pattern emerged. Each outbreak began with a working-age young man who had returned home to his village. These cases were “importations.” The young men had come from—or traveled through—the bordering state of Bihar. Cases were originating in Tatanagar, the company town of the corporate behemoth, Tata Companies. Tatanagar, a city in the state of Bihar, had no centralized government, and no public health structure in place.  Such an outbreak would require finding every case of smallpox and engineering a ring of immunity around it, tracing each outbreak to its source, posting watch guards, and vaccinating nearly every one of the three-quarters of a million residents of the area. But there was no army, public health corps, or centralized entity to manage such an effort.

FEATURING

Dr. Larry Brilliant, CEO of Pandefense Advisory

Dr. Girija Brilliant, Co-founder of Seva Foundation