Researcher who led fight to eradicate smallpox dies at 87

The American epidemiologist whose unwavering leadership resulted in the eradication nearly 40 years ago of smallpox, one of the world's most feared contagious diseases, has died.

Dr. Donald "D.A." Henderson was 87 when he died Friday at a hospice-care facility in Towson, Maryland, from complications after a hip fracture, Johns Hopkins University said in a statement. Henderson was a former dean of the school's Bloomberg School of Public Health.

He most recently was employed as a distinguished scholar at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center's Center for Health Security in Baltimore.

Henderson was working on smallpox eradication at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 1966 when the World Health Organization chose him to lead the global eradication effort. In a 1988 interview with the WHO Bulletin, Henderson said he accepted the challenge reluctantly, knowing he and the United States would be blamed if the project failed.

The last naturally occurring case of smallpox was diagnosed in Somalia in 1977.