Infant feeding marketing gains public health rules

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 international code addressed marketing practices for infant formula and other 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.

The paper supplied evidence for investigating the virus that became known as HIV.