Jay Friedman LOCATION: Nepal TIME PERIOD: 20 Mar – 1 April 1973
TITLE: Trekking for Smallpox in Nepal AUTHOR: Jay Friedman LOCATION: Nepal TIME PERIOD: 20 Mar – 1 April 1973 ROLE: Outbreak investigation FOREWORD In Nepal, as is well-known, the mountainous terrain made for many logistical and administrative difficulties in smallpox eradication. Conversely, from 1972 onward Nepal Smallpox Eradication Program (SEP) staff were present in all 75 districts of the country, which helped ensure that surveillance and containment of the few outbreaks that occurred in some of the mountainous areas would be well done. One of the best examples of this was an outbreak in Jurali Village, Latamandu Panchayat, Doti District, Seti Zone in early 1973. (At the time Nepal was divided into four Regions, 14 Zones (“Anchal” in Nepali), 75 districts and, within each district, a number of "panchayats", which in turn are sub-divided into nine wards and a number of villages.) A total of 13 days were spent going to and returning from the outbreak area by Dr. Benu Bahadur Karki, several members of a surveillance team and me. The story is as follows: THE TALE The SEP office in Kathmandu was notified of the outbreak via a telegram from our district office in the town of Silgadi Doti. Because Doti District is in the remote western hills of Nepal and difficult to reach from Kathmandu, my boss, Dr. M. Sathianathan (known to one and all as Sathy), persuaded his boss, the WHO Representative Dr. Peter Kim, to charter an airplane to transport us there. On March 20, 1973, at 12.30 PM, Dr. Karki, the surveillance team and I left for Doti in a Pilatus Porter of Royal Nepal Airlines.
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