NYC Health in History: Smallpox Outbreak in 1947
On March 1st, 1947, Eugene Le Bar and his wife visited NYC after a 6-year stay in Mexico City. On March 5th, he was admitted to Bellevue Hospital but because of his rash was soon transferred to Willard Parker Hospital, a communicable disease hospital also in Manhattan. Diagnosed with a drug reaction, he died at the hospital a few days later. After two patients on the same floor as him were diagnosed with smallpox, an autopsy confirmed he died of smallpox. Le Bar’s hospital stay soon led to additional smallpox cases in Willard patients, and cases soon emerged at Bellevue hospital.
On April 4, 1947, these events led NYC Mayor William O’Dwyer to announce plans to vaccinate everybody in the city. Vaccination clinics were set up around the city at hospitals, health department clinics, police and fire stations, and schools. The city also set up 179 additional locations to be used for vaccinations that were open every day. Within days, long lines formed outside the clinics. In less than a month, more than 6,350,000 people were vaccinated against smallpox in NYC. Over 5,000,000 of those vaccinations took place in the first two weeks. By the end of the outbreak, a total of 12 patients were confirmed to have had smallpox.
Thanks the efforts of NYC, U.S. Public Health Service, community organizations, and local health providers, the outbreak was declared ended on April 24, 1947.
Find out more about the outbreak in an article written by then NYC Health Commissioner Israel Weinstein.
Learn more about NYC’s immunization requirements for children in daycare or schools and services offered at our walk-in immunization clinics.
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