kamloopsthisweek.com | kamloopsthisweek |
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 2021 | Volume 34 No. 5
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DEATH, INJURIES AT NEW AFTON MINE
FRIGHTENED AND MORE AT RIH
WHL AWAITS GREEN LIGHT ON B.C. PLAY
Mudslide occurred in the early morning hours of Tuesday
Staff say anxiety levels are rising, along with COVID-19 case counts
Washington state and Alberta have now given the go-ahead
A5
A11
A27
Dr. Max Zahir at his home at Berwick on the Park: “The eradication of smallpox, it was [an] absolutely incredible achievement. At one time ,it was never thought it could never be done — and it was done. And it was the most devastating infectious disease mankind has ever discovered.” DAVE EAGLES/KTW
Recalling the fight to eradicate smallpox AS THE WORLD BATTLES THE CORONAVIRUS, RETIRED KAMLOOPS DR. MAX ZAHIR TALKS ABOUT HIS WORK IN PAKISTAN IN THE 1960S MICHAEL POTESTIO
LOCAL JOURNALISM INITIATIVE
michael@kamloopsthisweek.com
Memories of days past helping fight the smallpox epidemic in Pakistan during the 1960s are still fresh in the mind of retired Kamloops pathologist Dr. Max Zahir. That effort seems all the more relevant now as the world grapples with the COVID-19 vaccination rollout in a bid to end a pandemic that, in a year since
its detection, has infected more than 100-million people and killed more than two-million. Zahir, a 84-year-old Berwick on the Park resident, spent a year between 1966 and 1967 working in Lahore, Pakistan, to help snuff out smallpox — the contagious disease known for its rash of blisters that was successfully eradicated through vaccination by 1980. Decades earlier, the World Health Organization
had initiated a global campaign to rid the word of the disease, which was still endemic in countries across Africa, Asia and South America — a campaign that was intensified in the late 1960s. The strategy to address smallpox outbreaks in Pakistan, Zahir recalled, was to identify cases and rush to immunize that person’s close contacts before the virus could spread. See DEFEATING, A6
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