Remembering Dr. Bill Foege
1936-2026
The Mectizan Donation Program joins the global health community in mourning the loss of Dr. William (Bill) Foege, who passed away on January 24, 2026.
Following the 1987 donation of Mectizan for river blindness by Merck & Co., Inc., Merck CEO Dr. Roy Vagelos asked Dr. Foege to help launch the Mectizan Donation Program. Dr. Foege organized and chaired the Mectizan Expert Committee (MEC), which was established to ensure Mectizan would reach people in need of treatment safely and effectively. Dr. Foege chaired the MEC for 12 years.
Dr. Foege’s legacy goes far beyond his role as the first MEC chair. He is most widely known for leading the successful effort to eradicate smallpox. His vaccine distribution strategy for smallpox informed the early strategies to distribute Mectizan.
In a 2012 op-ed published in The Washington Post, Dr. Foege shared his inspiration for playing a role in river blindness elimination:
“Twenty-five years ago last month, something big started, a collaborative venture that changed the lives of hundreds of millions of people. For me the story began two decades earlier, when I was living in a Nigerian village, learning the language to help run a local health program. I can’t forget the constant scratching of people in that village. Women spent their days carrying water, preparing meals, collecting firewood and working in the field, always with constant itching as the background. For men, too, itching ruled their days. And then men and women in the village would go blind.”
Thanks to his guidance in the early days, today over five billion Mectizan treatments have been delivered and millions of people are no longer at risk.
The Mectizan Donation Program is grateful to Dr. Foege for his leadership, which aligned with his philosophy: “Public health might be the greatest measure of kindness, the greatest measure of how to treat each other.”