51 Copy to:- The Quarantine Board, Alexandria. Copy to:- The Director of Health, Jerusalem. Copy to:- The Inspector General of Health Services, High Commissioner, Beyrouth. Copy to:- The Director Eastern Bureau League of Nations, Singapore. Copy to:- The Medical Officer, Civil Airport, Karachi.” 4 DrHeggs also directly contacted Imperial Airways inBaghdad. They reached an arrangement through which the R.A.F Principal Medical Officer sent a medical officer by plane from Baghdad to Sharjah to take immediate protective measures. Among those measures were that - the Health Department in Baghdad telegraphed Karachi, Palestine and Alexandria informing them of the outbreak - a vaccination regimen was completed. - passengers who stop at Sharjah by air as well as the flight crews were put under surveillance. - All information relating to preventive diseases in the Gulf was very limited and there was a desperate need for relevant information and this could only be done through international arrangements. The Sharjah Smallpox outbreak raised many questions regarding holding an international conference on health in the Gulf in addition to having a quarantine for air transportation there.5 Examining the situation in Sharjah, on 31 December 1935, it was clear that the Imperial Airways rest house was 1½miles (2.4 km) from the city of Sharjah, and that the road leading to there went through the desert. The entire rest house was originally a fort that had been transformed. Five or six English permanent employees of Imperial Airways lived there. The rest of the employees, around 60 in total, were local and lived in tents temporarily set up outside the barbed wire fence surrounding the rest house and the aerodrome. All the residents could go to Sharjah at will. 4 Ibid. 5 Ibid., L.P.&S/12/3835, P.Z.1181/1936, No.1.458 SMALLPOX IN SHARJAH
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