Location
Age
Area of FocusAbout Donald's Work
Donald Hopkins is a public health physician who has devoted his career to eradicating preventable diseases.
Hopkins directed the Centers for Disease Control’s Smallpox Eradication/Measles Control Program in Sierra Leone, West Africa, and was a member of the team that eradicated smallpox in 1977. As a senior consultant for The Carter Center’s Global 2000 project, Hopkins led an effort to eradicate Guinea Worm disease (dracunculiasis), a painful, debilitating, yet preventable infection that has afflicted hundreds of thousands of people in Africa and Asia. Under his guidance, the program has already reduced the number of cases worldwide by ninety-nine percent. He also oversees the Center’s efforts to fight river blindness and trachoma in Africa and Latin America. A scholar of medical and social history, Hopkins is the author of Princes and Peasants: Smallpox in History (1983).
Biography
Hopkins is the associate executive director for health programs at The Carter Center. He served previously as the assistant director for international health (1978-1984), deputy director (1984-1987), and acting director (1985) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He was also an assistant professor of tropical public health at the Harvard School of Public Health.
Hopkins received a B.S. (1962) from Morehouse College, an M.D. (1966) from the University of Chicago, and an M.P.H. (1970) from Harvard University.
Last updated January 1, 2005
Published on July 1, 1995
