Health Sciences Communications
Emory University
Atlanta, GA 30322

Release date: Nov. 8, 999
Contact: Sarah Goodwin, Director, 404-727-3366 or sgoodwi@emory.edu.

Former CDC Director Heads Task Force for Child Survival

William H. Foege, M.D., Emory's Presidential Distinguished Professor of International Health, takes seriously the plight of children. Foege serves as executive director for the Task Force for Child Survival and Development, a group drawn from a consortium of organizations that is working with sponsoring agencies to achieve the broad health goals of the 1990 World Summit for Children. In an effort to improve the quality of life for children worldwide, the task force is creating alliances, building consensus and leveraging scarce resources.

Dr. Foege and several colleagues formed the Task Force for Child Survival and Development, a working group for the World Health Organization, UNICEF, The World Bank, the United Nations Development Program and the Rockefeller Foundation. Its success in accelerating childhood immunization led to an expansion of its mandate in 1991.

By writing and lecturing extensively on issues such as child survival and development, the global tobacco plague, medical ethics, preventive medicine and injury control, Dr. Foege has succeeded in broadening public awareness of these issues and in bringing them to the forefront of domestic and international health policies.

Dr. Foege is an epidemiologist who is widely recognized as a key member of the successful campaign to eradicate smallpox in the 1970s. After serving as a medical missionary in Nigeria, he became chief of the Smallpox Eradication Program at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and was appointed director of the CDC in 1977. Dr. Foege joined The Carter Center in 1986 as its executive director and currently continues as a fellow there.

Information on the Task Force is available at: http://www.taskforce.org,

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