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Marka (Merca), Somalia

city · earth

A coastal town in Lower Shabelle, Somalia, some seventy kilometres south-west of Mogadishu, and the place where the last naturally acquired case of smallpox in the world began. Ali Maow Maalin, a hospital cook and part-time vaccinator, developed a rash of variola minor with onset recorded on 26 October 1977; he recovered. The last natural case of the more lethal variola major had been Rahima Banu, a child in Bangladesh, in October 1975. One further death followed in 1978 — Janet Parker, a medical photographer in Birmingham, England, infected in a laboratory accident — which is why the certification process ran for two more years after Marka. Maalin later worked on polio eradication in Somalia and died of malaria in 2013.

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    Assembled narrative · 1

    Assembled from 8 blocks · 1 evidence · 1 related

    1. Story
    2. A coastal town in Lower Shabelle, Somalia, some seventy kilometres south-west of Mogadishu, and the place where the last naturally acquired case of smallpox in the world began. Ali Maow Maalin, a hospital cook and part-time vaccinator, developed a rash of variola minor with onset recorded on 26 October 1977; he recovered. The last natural case of the more lethal variola major had been Rahima Banu, a child in Bangladesh, in October 1975. One further death followed in 1978 — Janet Parker, a medical photographer in Birmingham, England, infected in a laboratory accident — which is why the certification process ran for two more years after Marka. Maalin later worked on polio eradication in Somalia and died of malaria in 2013.
    3. Knowledge
    4. Marka (Merca), Somalia
    5. Connections
    6. The last naturally acquired smallpox case begins, at Marka
    7. Evidence
    8. Supports the eradication of smallpox, its declaration date and the identification of the last naturally acquired case at Marka, Somalia, in October 1977. V55 verification basis: neither the report nor the resolution text was retrieved in this session.
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    Observed changes · 0

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