14 Facts About Isao Arita

Isao Arita advised the successful programme to eradicate poliovirus from the Western Pacific region.

Isao Arita spent around 2 years working on eradication in Liberia, Africa.

Isao Arita was a part of the WHO Smallpox Eradication Unit from its inception in 1966, serving as its deputy director under Henderson's leadership.

Isao Arita was responsible for developing the programme's "surveillance and containment" strategy, as well as for increasing the supply of smallpox vaccine used by the eradication programme, and for monitoring and improving vaccine quality.

Isao Arita administered the process by which smallpox was formally certified by WHO as having been eradicated globally in May 1980.

Isao Arita continued to direct the unit's international surveillance activities.

Isao Arita was involved in formulating policies on issues including ongoing vaccination and laboratory stocks of variola virus, and in archiving WHO's data on the eradication programme.

Isao Arita was one of the lead authors, with Frank Fenner and Henderson, of the WHO publication Smallpox and its Eradication, an exhaustive 1460-page volume which was published in January 1988.

Isao Arita wrote his own personal account in the 2010 book, The Smallpox Eradication Saga.

In 1985, Isao Arita left WHO to direct the Kumamoto National Hospital in Japan, a position he retained until his retirement in 1992.

Isao Arita advised Morihiro Hosokawa on the foundation of the Agency for Cooperation in International Health in 1990, and became its chair in 1993.

Isao Arita served on the expert committee that certified the eradication of wild poliovirus from North and South America in 1997.

In 2006, with Fenner and Miyuki Nakane, Isao Arita published an opinion piece in the journal Science that questioned whether it was feasible to eradicate polio globally, and suggested that control might be a preferable option.

Isao Arita published on severe acute respiratory syndrome, measles, hepatitis B, hepatitis C and other viral diseases.