World Health Assembly adopts a breast-milk substitutes code

The conference connected health with equity, development and action beyond medical services.

Member states formally endorsed global eradication after extensive vaccination and surveillance campaigns.

The declaration recognized contributions by local health services and communities across many countries.

Variolation predated vaccination by centuries; later vaccine technology and worldwide organizing finally ended natural smallpox transmission.

The 8 May declaration concerned global disappearance of naturally occurring cases, not elimination of laboratory virus stocks.

The code sought to protect breastfeeding while recognizing appropriate use of substitutes.

The assembly adopted the code as a recommendation that countries could implement through national measures.

Its adoption did not make all advertising restrictions automatically binding in every country.

Institut Pasteur researchers published their first paper on the new human retrovirus in Science.

Françoise Barré-Sinoussi was central to the collaborative research reported on this date.