![Rahima Banu, seated in front of her husband and two daughters, wears a cobalt-blue scarf with white flowers — it’s draped over her head and shoulders and modestly tucked under her chin. The daughter who stands immediately behind her rests her hands on her mother’s shoulders; she is draped in bright pink cloth that covers all but her eyes. The daughter to the viewer’s left wears a black scarf that half covers her head, and she holds her hands together in front of her. Her husband is in a daffodil-yellow short-sleeved shirt, his gaze fixed on the camera in front of him.](https://kffhealthnews.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/11/20220805_Rahima-Banu-and-family.jpg)
![Rahima Banu’s husband stands in front of their home in August 2022. He has a long beard, mostly gray, and wears a daffodil-yellow short-sleeved shirt with a sky-blue garment beneath it. The house is made from bamboo and corrugated metal. The mud stairs that lead inside are dotted with moss.](https://kffhealthnews.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/11/EPIs2e8_GOUNDER_Rahima-Banus-husband-2.jpg)
In 1975, smallpox eradication workers in the capital of Bangladesh, Dhaka, rushed to Kuralia, a village in the country’s south. They were abuzz and the journey was urgent because they thought they just might get to document the very last case of variola major, a deadly strain of the virus.
When they arrived, they met a toddler, Rahima Banu.
She did have smallpox, and five years later, in 1980, when the World Health Organization declared smallpox eradicated, Banu became a symbol of one of the greatest accomplishments in public health.
That’s the lasting public legacy of Rahima Banu, the girl.
Episode 8, the series finale of “Eradicating Smallpox,” is the story of Rahima Banu, the woman — and her life after smallpox.
To meet with her, podcast host Céline Gounder traveled to Digholdi, Bangladesh, where Banu, her husband, their three daughters, and a son share a one-room bamboo-and-corrugated-metal home with a mud floor. Their finances are precarious. The family cannot afford good health care or to send their daughter to college.
The public has largely forgotten Banu, while in her personal life she faced prejudice from the local community because she had smallpox. Those negative attitudes followed her for decades after the virus was eradicated.
“I feel ashamed of my scars. People also felt disgusted,” Banu said, crying as she spoke through an interpreter.
Despite the hardship she’s faced, she is proud of her role in history, and that her children never had to live with the virus.
“It did not happen to anyone, and it will not happen,” she said.
The Host:
![A color photograph from 1975 shows Rahima Banu as a toddler, being held by her mother. Healed smallpox scars are faintly visible on Banu’s skin. Both she and her mother look toward the camera.](https://kffhealthnews.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/11/EPI_s2e8_CDC-public-domain-RAHIMA-1.jpg)
Voices From the Episode:
Credits
Additional Newsroom Support
Lydia Zuraw, digital producer
Tarena Lofton, audience engagement producer
Hannah Norman, visual producer and visual reporter
Simone Popperl, broadcast editor
Chaseedaw Giles, social media manager
Mary Agnes Carey, partnerships editor
Damon Darlin, executive editor
Terry Byrne, copy chief
Gabe Brison-Trezise, deputy copy chief
Chris Lee, senior communications officer
Additional Reporting Support
Swagata Yadavar, translator and local reporting partner in India
Redwan Ahmed, translator and local reporting partner in Bangladesh
“Epidemic” is a co-production of KFF Health News and Just Human Productions.
To hear other KFF Health News podcasts, click here. Subscribe to “Epidemic” on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google, Pocket Casts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.