Just when you thought smallpox was gone someplace, it could roar back.

We were aware that in some other countries, there had been celebrations and then later found

there had been ongoing transmission It wasn't detected.

The virus was persistent and slippery,

but smallpox did end,

and Alan Schnur was there when it did.

I was one of the team members

who was the first international responders to the last case

of Ariol a major smallpox.

The beginning of the end was 1975 in Bangladesh.

Alan was in the capital city of Dhaka, meeting with other field workers from the World Health Organization.

They were gathered in a quancet hut.

If you've ever seen a World War II movie, you know what it looks like.

Picture a big tin can cut down the middle, resting on its side.

The meeting was uneventful, which was a change of pace.

When Alan first came to Bangladesh, was uneventful, which was a change of pace.

When Allen first came to Bangladesh, smallpox cases had exploded.

The country was reeling from a war for liberation.

But by that day, the outbreak had fizzled.

Things had gone very quiet, no reports of any act of smallpox cases,

despite searches going on for several weeks.

Alan remembers that the walls of the Kwanza hut were covered with maps and manuals documenting

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