Smallpox vaccine get to a populated place. The world health system is completely unprepared for this." In the United Kingdom, controversy occurred regarding the company which had been contracted to supply the vaccine. This was because of the political connections of its owner, Paul Drayson, and questions over the choice of vaccine strain. The strain was different from that used in the United States. Plans for mass vaccinations in the United States stalled as the necessity of the inoculation came into question. Smallpox vaccine Smallpox vaccine, the first successful vaccine to be developed, was introduced by Edward Jenner in 1796. He followed
1978 smallpox outbreak in the United Kingdom free of smallpox on 16 October 1978. At the time of the outbreak, the WHO had been about to certify that smallpox had been eradicated globally. It eventually did so in 1980. On 5 September 1978, Parker's 71-year-old father, Frederick Witcomb, of Myrtle Avenue, Kings Heath, died while in quarantine at Catherine-de-Barnes Hospital. He appeared to have died following a cardiac arrest when visiting his daughter. No post-mortem was carried out on his body because of the risk of smallpox infection. On 6 September 1978, Henry Bedson, then Head of the Microbiology Department at the University of Birmingham Medical School