The End of Smallpox

Radio Diaries

Radio Diaries & Radiotopia

Documentary, Society & Culture

4.6 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 19 May 2022

⏱️ 21 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Only one human disease has ever been completely eradicated: Smallpox. Smallpox was around for more than 3,000 years and killed at least 300 million people in the 20th century. Then, by 1980, it was gone.

Rahima Banu was the last person in the world to have the deadliest form of smallpox. In 1975, Banu was a toddler growing up in a remote village in Bangladesh when she developed the telltale bumpy rash. Soon, public health workers from around the world showed up at her home to try to keep the virus from spreading. This is her story.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Last day is a show about the moments that change us.
0:03.0	I just don't think I will ever get used to this.
0:06.0	I'm Stephanie Little's Wax, and I have had one of these moments.
0:10.0	We all have.
0:11.0	So let's unpack the chaos that is our human existence together.
0:14.0	I don't believe things happen for a reason.
0:16.0	I don't believe the universe has a plan.
0:18.0	Each week, I sit down with a new guest
0:20.0	to explore happy, sad stories of transformation.
0:23.0	It's leaning far, far into the pain.
0:26.0	That's what it is.
0:27.0	Listen to last day wherever you get your podcasts.
0:31.0	Radio Topia.
0:34.0	From PRX.
0:36.0	From PRX's Radio Topia, this is Radio Diaries.
0:39.0	I'm Joe Richmond.
0:41.0	More and more people are getting used to the idea
0:43.0	that COVID-19 isn't going to disappear anytime soon.
0:47.0	Here's Dr. Anthony Fauci at the World Economic Forum this past January.
0:51.0	If you look at the history of infectious diseases,
0:54.0	we've only eradicated one infectious disease in man and that's smallpox.
0:58.0	That's not going to happen with this virus.
	...

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