William H Foege House On Fire Summary

Review of William H. Foege’s House On Fire: The Fight to Eradicate Smallpox
Rahul Truter “Future nations will know by history only that the loathsome smallpox has existed and by you extirpated”. This quote comes from Thomas Jefferson to Edward Jenner, he founder of the smallpox vaccine. It would only be 100 years later that Jefferson would see his dream fulfilled, but not without struggle. In House on Fire, author William H. Foege shares his first hand view of the lengths that society needed to go through to rid the world of the disease that had plagued it for so long. The story of the fight against smallpox extends long before our efforts for global eradication and is a representation of how society deals with widespread disease. House on

An emerging diseases class must also anticipate what the potential issues are that may halt the eradication process. An example of a problem is when Foege had to figure out what to do when faced with a low supply of the vaccine. There were two main choices, try and target the places where the outbreak occurred, or dilute the vaccine and give it to everyone. Each had their own downside however. If Foege and his team targeted the wrong places then the virus would still spread and inevitably infect everyone in the area and wreak havoc on the region since all of the vaccine would be gone. The other option had an equally catastrophic down side. If the vaccine was too diluted and did not take then the virus could become active and those inoculated would most likely become infected with vaccine-borne smallpox. To make a long story short, the first option was chosen and actually lead to the “Surveillance and Containment” method. This method entailed surveying the population for anyone who could have the outbreak and then making sure to contain any potential outbreak from occurring. This idea of identifying the problems that are being faced and weighing the options against each other is an important concept to understand in an emerging diseases class. In an eradication effort Foege lets us know

However, Foege does so in a very unsystematic way. Foege separated his experience into two separate stories, “Identifying the Key Strategy” (West Africa) and “Meeting the Challenge of Eradication” (India). While it was important to identify how the “Surveillance and Containment” procedure was developed Foege did not highlight how the procedure was still perfected in the “Meeting the Challenge of Eradication”. To the reader this came across as confusing since it was thought that the procedure used going into India. In fact this procedure’s use had to be defended when questioned by Ambassador Moynihan. Coincedentally through the defending of the idea “Surveillance and Containment” the books namesake was founded. Foege makes frequent references to the benefits of the method while not actually stating that this was the method that was going to be