The Gates Plan Open Access

William H. Foege, M.D., M.P.H. is a Senior Fellow with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's Global Health Program and Emeritus Presidential Distinguished Professor of International Health at Emory University. Dr. Foege received his M.D. from the University of Washington Medical School in 1961 and his M.P.H. from Harvard University in 1965. He worked as a medical missionary in Eastern Nigeria, where he developed a surveillance and containment strategy that changed the worldwide approach to smallpox vaccination and eventually led to the disease's eradication in the 1970s under his leadership of the Smallpox Eradication Program. He served as a medical officer for the World Health Organization in India, then joined the CDC as assistant to the director. He was director of the CDC from 1977 to 1983.