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Posted 09/03/02
William H. Foege, MD, MPH
Senior Medical Advisor, Gates Foundation; Former Director of Centers for Disease Control and Former Executive Director, The Carter Center.
Friday, September 20, 12-1 PM, Auditorium G, DHMC
It is open to the public.
Dr. William Foege has played a key role in many of the major important public health advances of the 20th century, including the eradication of smallpox, successful attacks on Guinea worm disease and river blindness, and the creation of a model for improving nutrition in developing countries.
A medical doctor and a public health specialist, Dr. Foege is now dedicating himself to the global need to immunize children against disease. He currently serves as Senior Adviser to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which has committed $1 billion to providing vaccinations for all children -- particularly those in developing nations -- in part through the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI).
In the 1960s, while working as an epidemiologist in Africa and faced with a critical shortage of vaccines, he came up with a strategy to eradicate smallpox. And during his leadership as Director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), from 1977 to 1983, smallpox was eradicated worldwide. In 1984, UNICEF, other international organizations and the Rockefeller Foundation collaborated with Dr. Foege to form the working group now known as the Task Force for Child Survival and Development, with the aim of accelerating childhood immunization. Dr. Foege was its Executive Director until 1999. From 1986 to 1992, Dr. Foege was Executive Director of the Carter Center in Atlanta.
Dr. Foege has received numerous awards, including the WHO Health for All medal, an award from the Healthtrac Foundation and the Calderone Prize. He holds honorary degrees from 10 institutions and was named a Fellow of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. He serves on the boards of multiple foundations and councils dedicated to the improvement of global health.
For information call Lee Witters at (603) 650-1909.
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