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4342 | Eradication of Diseases | eradication-of-diseases | page | publish | <!-- wp:html --> <div class="blog-info"> <p>This article was first published in June 2014; last revised in October 2018.</p> </div> <!-- /wp:html --> <!-- wp:owid/summary --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The ultimate goal in the fight against diseases is their eradication. In theory, many diseases could be eradicated, in practice, only a handful of diseases meet the criteria that make them eradicable with current knowledge, institutions, and technology. In this entry we look at the progress the world has made in eradicating diseases, what makes a disease eradicable and which diseases we can hope to eradicate in the future.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:list --> <ul><li><a href="#disease-eradication-is-an-ongoing-process">Diseases that are considered eradicable today are: polio, Guinea worm disease, lymphatic filariasis, cysticercosis, measles, mumps and rubella</a></li><li><a href="#what-makes-a-disease-eradicable">Eradicable diseases usually need to meet the following criteria: it's an infectious disease, humans are the major host of for the disease, effective vaccines or treatments are available for the disease, and there is political and financial support for the eradication efforts</a></li><li><a href="#successfully-eradicated-diseases">The world has eradicated two diseases: Smallpox and Rinderpest</a></li><li><a href="#diseases-that-could-be-eliminated-in-some-parts-of-the-world">Efforts to eradicate or eliminate additional diseases from parts of the world such as malaria, trachoma, river blindness and yaws are underway</a></li></ul> <!-- /wp:list --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p></p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- /wp:owid/summary --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>Related entries:</strong></p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:list --> <ul><li><a href="https://ourworldindata.org/smallpox">Smallpox</a> – How was smallpox eradicated?</li><li><a href="https://ourworldindata.org/polio">Polio</a> – Just a generation ago polio paralyzed hundreds of thousands of children every year. Now the world can possibly eradicate it.</li><li><a href="https://ourworldindata.org/vaccination">Vaccination</a> – Vaccines protect from diseases and are key to many eradication efforts.</li></ul> <!-- /wp:list --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>Related writing:</strong></p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:list --> <ul><li><a href="https://ourworldindata.org/can-the-world-eradicate-another-disease">Can the world eradicate another disease?</a></li><li><a href="https://ourworldindata.org/how-rinderpest-was-eradicated">Rinderpest was eradicated</a></li></ul> <!-- /wp:list --> <!-- wp-block-tombstone 28013 --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":3} --> <h3>“Eradication” versus “Elimination”</h3> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The e<em>radication</em> of a disease is permanent and global, while the <em>elimination</em> of a disease is an achievement restricted to a specific geographic area.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:list --> <ul><li><em>Eradication </em>of a disease refers to a deliberate effort that leads to the permanent reduction to zero of the worldwide incidence of infection caused by a specific agent.{ref}Dowdle, WR. (1999) The principles of disease elimination and eradication. <em>Bulletin of the World Health Organization</em>. 1998;76 (Suppl 2):22-25. Online <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2305684/" target="_blank">here</a>.{/ref}</li></ul> <!-- /wp:list --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Eradication means that intervention measures are no longer required, the agent, which previously caused the disease is no longer present. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:list --> <ul><li><em>Elimination</em> of a disease refers to the deliberate effort that leads to the reduction to zero of the incidence of infection caused by a specific agent in a defined geographic area. A disease can be eliminated from a specific region without being eradicated globally. Actions to prevent the disease from transmitting or re-emerging are still required once a disease is eliminated.{ref}Dowdle, WR. (1999) The principles of disease elimination and eradication. <em>Bulletin of the World Health Organization</em>. 1998;76 (Suppl 2):22-25. Online <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2305684/" target="_blank">here</a>.{/ref}</li></ul> <!-- /wp:list --> <!-- wp:heading --> <h2>Disease eradication is an ongoing process</h2> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>So far, the world has eradicated two diseases — smallpox and rinderpest. How many other diseases could we eradicate?</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>In this entry we are primarily guided by the list of eradicable diseases provided by The International Task Force for Disease Eradication (ITFDE). ITFDE was formed in 1988 at the The Carter Center; it is supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and advises bodies such as the World Health Organisation on various aspects of disease eradication.{ref}<a href="https://www.cartercenter.org/health/itfde/index.html">https://www.cartercenter.org/health/itfde/index.html</a>{/ref} </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The table here shows the two diseases which the world has eradicated and the seven diseases that ITFDE has listed as potentially eradicable.{ref}<a href="https://www.cartercenter.org/resources/pdfs/news/health_publications/itfde/updated_disease_candidate_table.pdf">Recommendations of the International Task Force for Disease Eradication (2008). </a>{/ref} These diseases are — polio, Guinea worm disease, lymphatic filariasis, cysticercosis, measles, mumps and rubella. These diseases are considered eradicable diseases because they satisfy the criteria for disease eradication discussed below in this entry. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Which diseases can be eradicated and when it can be done is a topic of an ongoing discussion. The following examples illustrate the point:</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>While ITFDE has placed seven diseases on its eradicable diseases list, the WHO currently suggests that polio and Guinea worm disease are eradicable while lymphatic filariasis, cysticercosis, measles, mumps and rubella could be eliminated from some parts of the world. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Even for diseases where possibility of eradication has been agreed upon, the date when it will happen remains a moving target. The timeline for Guinea worm disease eradication was first set for 1991, then moved to 2009, then to 2015, then to 2020 and is currently set for 2030. {ref}The, Lancet.<a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(19)30738-X/fulltext"> "Guinea worm disease eradication: a moving target."</a> <em>Lancet (London, England)</em> 393.10178 (2019): 1261.{/ref} </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Global Malaria Eradication Program was established in 1955 to eradicate malaria, but it was abandoned in 1969. Today, however, a renewed focus on malaria eradication has emerged, with the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation proposing a plan to end malaria by 2040.{ref}<a href="http://endmalaria2040.org/">http://endmalaria2040.org/</a>{/ref} </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>All these examples illustrate that disease eradication is an ongoing process. As science discovers new facts about diseases and researchers invent new ways to tackle them the world has to change its perspective on which goals are feasible now and which ones are not yet. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":6} --> <h6>Infectious diseases that have been eradicated and could be eradicated in the future{ref}Polio cases in 2017 and case-fatality estimates are based on CDC data - found <a href="http:// https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/68/wr/mm6820a3.htm#T2_down">here</a> and <a href="http:// https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/polio.html">here</a>. </h6> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Guinea worm disease cases since 1989 are reported by the Carter Foundation - found <a href="https://www.cartercenter.org/resources/pdfs/news/health_publications/guinea_worm/guinea-worm-cases-by-year-from-1989.pdf">here</a>.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Measles, mumps and rubella reported cases for 2017 are taken from the WHO - found <a href="http://apps.who.int/immunization_monitoring/globalsummary/timeseries/tsincidencemeasles.html">here</a>.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Measles case-fatality estimate is from CDC - found <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/downloads/meas.pdf">here</a>.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Mumps case-fatality estimate is from WHO - found <a href="https://www.who.int/immunization/monitoring_surveillance/burden/vpd/surveillance_type/passive/mumps_standards/en/">here</a>.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Cysticercosis case estimate is from WHO - found here. And case-fatality from papers published <a href="http://repositorio.ufc.br/bitstream/riufc/15032/1/2016_art_frmmelo.pdf ">here</a> and <a href="http:// https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2725874/">here</a>.{/ref}</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:shortcode --> <table><thead><tr><th scope="col" colSpan="1">Disease</th><th scope="col" colSpan="1">Burden of disease</th><th scope="col" colSpan="1">Cause</th><th scope="col" colSpan="1">Ways to eradicate</th><th scope="col" colSpan="1">Fatality</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td colSpan="1" rowspan="1">Smallpox</td><td colSpan="1" rowspan="1">Declared eradicated in 1980</td><td colSpan="1" rowspan="1">Variola virus</td><td colSpan="1" rowspan="1">Eradicated using vaccination</td><td colSpan="1" rowspan="1">30%</td></tr><tr><td colSpan="1" rowspan="1">Rinderpest</td><td colSpan="1" rowspan="1">Declared eradicated in 2011</td><td colSpan="1" rowspan="1">Rinderpest virus</td><td colSpan="1" rowspan="1">Sanitary measures and vaccination</td><td colSpan="1" rowspan="1">100%</td></tr><tr><td colSpan="1" rowspan="1">Poliomielitis</td><td colSpan="1" rowspan="1">116 cases in 2017</td><td colSpan="1" rowspan="1">Poliovirus</td><td colSpan="1" rowspan="1">Vaccination</td><td colSpan="1" rowspan="1">For paralytic polio 2-5% in children and increases to 15-30% in adults</td></tr><tr><td colSpan="1" rowspan="1">Guinea worm disease</td><td colSpan="1" rowspan="1">30 cases in 2017</td><td colSpan="1" rowspan="1">Parasitic worm Dracunculus medinensis</td><td colSpan="1" rowspan="1">Hygiene, water decontamination and health education</td><td colSpan="1" rowspan="1">Not fatal but debilitating</td></tr><tr><td colSpan="1" rowspan="1">Measles</td><td colSpan="1" rowspan="1">173,457 reported cases to WHO in 2017</td><td colSpan="1" rowspan="1">Measles morbillivirus</td><td colSpan="1" rowspan="1">Vaccination</td><td colSpan="1" rowspan="1">15%</td></tr><tr><td colSpan="1" rowspan="1">Mumps</td><td colSpan="1" rowspan="1">560,622 reported cases to WHO in 2017</td><td colSpan="1" rowspan="1">Mumps orthorubulavirus</td><td colSpan="1" rowspan="1">Vaccination</td><td colSpan="1" rowspan="1">0.01% for mumps-caused encephalitis</td></tr><tr><td colSpan="1" rowspan="1">Rubella</td><td colSpan="1" rowspan="1">6,789 reported cases to WHO in 2017</td><td colSpan="1" rowspan="1">Rubella virus</td><td colSpan="1" rowspan="1">Vaccination</td><td colSpan="1" rowspan="1">Not reported</td></tr><tr><td colSpan="1" rowspan="1">Lymphatic filariasis</td><td colSpan="1" rowspan="1">No estimate available. In 2014, 68 million people were infected and 790 million people where at risk of infection</td><td colSpan="1" rowspan="1">Roundworms: W. bancrofti, B. malayi, B. timori</td><td colSpan="1" rowspan="1">Preventive chemotherapy</td><td colSpan="1" rowspan="1">Not fatal but highly debilitating</td></tr><tr><td colSpan="1" rowspan="1">Cysticercosis</td><td colSpan="1" rowspan="1">2.56–8.30 million cases estimated by the WHO</td><td colSpan="1" rowspan="1">Tapeworms: T. solium, T. saginata, T. asiatica</td><td colSpan="1" rowspan="1">Sanitation and health education. Vaccination of pigs</td><td colSpan="1" rowspan="1">Varies between countries <1-30%</td></tr></tbody></table> <!-- /wp:shortcode --> <!-- wp:heading --> <h2>What makes a disease eradicable?</h2> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Louis Pasteur once said that “<em>it is within the power of man to eradicate infection from the earth</em>”.{ref}Dubos, René Jules, and Jean Dubos. <em>The white plague: tuberculosis, man, and society</em>. p228. Rutgers University Press, 1987.{/ref} That power has so far eradicated two infectious diseases: smallpox and rinderpest. We are also getting closer to eradicating polio and Guinea worm disease. But can we eradicate <em>all</em> infection from the world?<br></p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>For a disease eradication to be feasible and an option worth considering it needs to meet certain criteria. Below we highlight some of these criteria. Notably, these criteria are not set in stone. Eradication of diseases is an ongoing process, as we learn more about diseases and find new ways to treat them we may find that some of these criteria become obsolete or that disease that were once considered not to fulfill any of these requirements begin to tick all the boxes.<br></p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":3} --> <h3>Key requirements for disease eradication</h3> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>There are several required aspects of a disease that need to be fulfilled in order for a disease to be considered eradicable:</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:list --> <ul><li>It needs to be an <em>infectious</em> disease</li><li>We need to have ways to either prevent or treat the infection</li></ul> <!-- /wp:list --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>For a disease to be eradicable it needs to be a disease you can "catch" from other humans or animals, that is it has to be infectious. Non-infectious diseases, such as heart disease or cancer, cannot be eradicated.{ref}There are also certain metabolic diseases that could be cured in all humans provided sufficient nutrition. These are mainly vitamin or essential element deficiencies such as scurvy (lack of vitamin C) or ion deficiency disorders. However, while it is theoretically possible that no human in the world would have one of these metabolic diseases at some point in time, these diseases will never be eradicated because they will return if a person's nutritional status changes.{/ref}</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Without an effective treatment against a disease there is no possibility of eradicating it. The treatment can be either preventative, such as vaccination, or curative, such as drugs that can completely eliminate the pathogen that causes the disease from its host. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":3} --> <h3>Disease aspects that make eradication more likely</h3> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>In addition the the key requirements there are many other aspects of the disease that should be considered in the efforts to eradicate it:</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:list --> <ul><li>How many pathogens cause the disease?</li><li>Does the disease-causing pathogen have one or more hosts?</li><li>Are there any identifiable symptoms of the disease?</li><li>Has regional disease elimination proven possible? </li><li>Is the perceived disease burden high and is financial and political support available?</li></ul> <!-- /wp:list --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":4} --> <h4>How many pathogens cause the disease?</h4> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The more pathogens cause the disease the more difficult it will be to eradicate. If a disease is caused by a limited number and closely related pathogens then often same tools and approaches can be used in eradication efforts. For example, smallpox was caused by two types of variola virus and the same vaccine was used to prevent it. Contrast this to a disease such as <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/pneumonia#">pneumonia</a>, which is caused by <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/pneumonia#what-pathogens-cause-pneumonia">multiple pathogens</a>- from bacteria to viruses - each of which requires a different treatment. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":4} --> <h4>Does the disease-causing pathogen have one or more hosts?</h4> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Diseases with multiple hosts are difficult to target for eradication because it often means that the disease will have to be eradicated in all of them.{ref}Notably of course, rinderpest — one of the two eradicated diseases, had multiple animal hosts. <br>{/ref} Pathogens, which cause diseases such as poliomielitis, measles, mumps, rubella, diphtheria and whooping cough, all have a single host — humans. But single-host pathogens are generally an exception rather than a rule. Case-in-point, the 2020 eradication target for Guinea worm disease had to be postponed, because we learned about high-rates of transmission of the Guinea worm between dog populations, which may be a source for new human infections.{ref}Eberhard, M. L., Ruiz-Tiben, E., Hopkins, D. R., Farrell, C., Toe, F., Weiss, A., … & Hance, Z. (2014). <a href="http://www.ajtmh.org/content/journals/10.4269/ajtmh.13-0554">The peculiar epidemiology of dracunculiasis in Chad.</a><em>The American journal of tropical medicine and hygiene</em>, <em>90</em>(1), 61-70.{/ref}</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":4} --> <h4>Are there any identifiable symptoms of the disease?</h4> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Some diseases are not easy to detect in the first place. 1.7 billion people live with latent tuberculosis infection today.{ref} World Health Organization. <a href="https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/329368/9789241565714-eng.pdf?ua=1">"Global tuberculosis report 2019."</a> <em>Global tuberculosis report 2019</em>. 2019.<br>{/ref} Because latent TB has no symptoms, identifying every single individual that has latent TB infection, unless we test every person in the world, is not possible. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>For other diseases even when symptoms may be visible or detectable, the stigma surrounding the disease may limit our ability to treat it. Hepatitis C is a disease that fits most eradication criteria, however, because the disease has a high prevalence among drug users, there is a stigma attached to being identified as an infected individual, making it difficult to identify all the cases. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":4} --> <h4>Has regional disease elimination proven possible?</h4> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Disease eradication is usually achieved one step at a time. A proof-of-concept eradication in one region is a positive indicator that eradication at a larger scale is possible. Once the disease elimination has been achieved on a smaller scale, a greater support for the feasibility of elimination elsewhere can be gathered. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":4} --> <h4>Is the perceived disease burden high and is financial and political support available?</h4> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The perceived burden of a disease, the estimated cost of eradication, and the political stability of affected countries are further factors that determine the eradicability of diseases. Polio is a good example here. Polio eradication efforts illustrate the powerful impact of both a unified international effort and a local political support. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>In 1988, the Global Polio Eradication Initiative was set-up to provide a large-scale continued support for the eradication of polio. Since then, the number of paralytic polio cases has been greatly reduced such that in 2018 it was considered endemic in only three countries: Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Nigeria.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>But polio also illustrates that positive developments might reverse. Nigeria’s case numbers surged from 202 in 2002 to 1,143 in 2006 because of rumors that polio vaccination was a covert affair to cause infertility and spread HIV in the local communities, which ultimately lead to an 11-month vaccination boycott.{ref} Larson, H., & Ghinai, I. (2011). <a href="http://www.globe-network.org/sites/default/files/documents/public/en/news-and-events/news/2011/lessons-from-polio-eradication.pdf">Lessons from polio eradication</a>. <em>Nature, 473</em>(7348), 446-447. <br>{/ref} This example illustrates that eradication efforts have to span from international to national and community levels in order to be successful. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:heading --> <h2>What are the benefits of eradicating diseases?</h2> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The immediate benefit of eradicating a disease is obvious — <em>preventing suffering and saving people’s lives</em>.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>But eradicating a disease can also have significant economic benefits. Disease eradication takes years to achieve and requires a lot of financial investment: smallpox eradication had an <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/smallpox#costs-of-smallpox-and-its-eradication">estimated cost of $300 million</a> over a 10-year period; polio eradication efforts to date amounted to $4.5 billion.{ref} Lahariya, C. (2007). <a href="https://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/85/6/06-037457/en/">Global eradication of polio: the case for" finishing the job".</a> <em>Bulletin of the World Health Organization</em>, <em>85</em>, 487-492.{/ref} But, as the chart here illustrates, while the initial costs of disease eradication efforts are high, in the long-term these costs pay-off. Simply controlling a disease can be more expensive because of the continued burden a disease poses on a healthcare system and the lost productivity of a sick population. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>How much we should spend on eradicating a disease? There will always be other good causes we can spend money on. These include non-health causes, health causes with greater burden, eradication of different diseases, and even research into more cost effective treatments instead of eradication. The scenario or intervention which brings the highest benefit needs to be assessed for each disease separately. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><br>As a classical paper by Walter R. Dowdle’s classical paper on disease eradication states: <em>“Elimination and eradication are the ultimate goals of public health. The only question is whether these goals are to be achieved in the present or [by] some future generation".</em>{ref}Dowdle, WR. (1999) <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2305684/">The principles of disease elimination and eradication.</a> <em>Bulletin of the World Health Organization</em>. 1998;76(Suppl 2):22-25.{/ref}</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":6} --> <h6>Eradicating vs controlling a disease: schematic comparison of the costs</h6> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:image {"align":"center","id":18598,"linkDestination":"custom"} --> <div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter"><a href="https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2018/04/Costs-of-controlling-vs-eradicating-a-disease-1.png"><img src="https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2018/04/Costs-of-controlling-vs-eradicating-a-disease-1-750x446.png" alt="" class="wp-image-18598"/></a></figure></div> <!-- /wp:image --> <!-- wp:heading --> <h2>Successfully eradicated diseases</h2> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The world has successfuly eradicated two diseases:</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:list --> <ul><li>Smallpox was declared eradicated in 1980</li><li>Rinderpest was declared eradicated in 2011 </li></ul> <!-- /wp:list --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":3} --> <h3>Smallpox: 200 years between vaccine and the disease eradication</h3> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The last recorded case of smallpox occurred in 1977 in Somalia. The disease was officially declared eradicated by the World Health Organization in 1980.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>From the invention of vaccine against smallpox by Edward Jenner in 1796, it took almost two centuries to eradicate the disease. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>It was only with the establishment of the World Health Organization in the aftermath of World War II that international quality standards for the production of smallpox vaccines were introduced and the fight against smallpox moved from national to an international agenda. In 1966, the WHO launched the Intensified Smallpox Eradication Program. By then smallpox cases and deaths in Europe and North America had been driven down substantially but large parts of Asia and Africa still struggled under smallpox’s disease burden.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Shown in the chart are the number of reported smallpox cases from 1920 until the last case in 1977. Even though smallpox had high visibility and should therefore have been relatively easy to document, the lack of an international organization dedicated to global health means the number of cases was likely much greater.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The world map illustrates the year the variola virus (the virus that caused smallpox) was no longer endemic in a country.{ref}A disease is no longer endemic when uninterrupted circulation is not happening anymore. This means that there could have been cases after a country had eliminated smallpox but these were imported from an endemic country.{/ref}</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:html --> <iframe style="width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;" src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/decade-in-which-smallpox-ceased-to-be-endemic-by-country" data-mce-fragment="1" width="300" height="150"></iframe> <!-- /wp:html --> <!-- wp:owid/prominent-link {"title":"More about smallpox","linkUrl":"https://owid.cloud/smallpox","mediaId":28152,"mediaUrl":"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2019/11/deaths-from-smallpox-per-1000-population-scaled.png","mediaAlt":""} --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>You can find out more about the disease and its history in our much more comprehensive Smallpox entry.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- /wp:owid/prominent-link --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":3} --> <h3>Rinderpest: eradication began before vaccine against the disease was available</h3> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Rinderpest is the only animal disease that has been eradicated so far. Rinderpest outbreaks in cattles used to cause devastating losses for animal farmers. The eradication efforts began in the 1920s before the vaccine against the rinderpest virus was even available. Measures such as animal quarantine and slaughter were used to contain the disease.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The map here shows the last year in which cases of rinderpest were reported in a country. In 1960 an English veterinary scientist Walter Plowright has developed a vaccine against rinderpest, which finally led to its eradication. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>You can read more about the history of rinderpest eradication in our post <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/how-rinderpest-was-eradicated">here</a>.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:html --> <iframe src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/year-of-the-last-reported-rinderpest-case" width="300" height="150"></iframe> <!-- /wp:html --> <!-- wp:owid/prominent-link {"title":"How was rinderpest eradicated?","linkUrl":"https://owid.cloud/how-rinderpest-was-eradicated","mediaId":26377,"mediaUrl":"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2019/10/year-of-the-last-reported-rinderpest-case.png","mediaAlt":""} --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>You can read more about the history of rinderpest eradication in our post.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- /wp:owid/prominent-link --> <!-- wp:heading --> <h2>Diseases we could eradicate</h2> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":3} --> <h3>Polio</h3> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Polio, short for poliomyelitis, is a disease that is caused by the poliovirus. Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin invented two polio <a href="https://owid.cloud/vaccination">vaccines</a> in 1953 and 1961, respectively, which eliminated polio from the United States and Canada in 1979 and rapidly lead to a large reduction of the disease in the Western Europe. While Salk's vaccine required injection with a needle, Sabin's vaccine is oral and can be swallowed. The latter feature made its distribution throughout the developing world possible, as fewer trained healthcare staff were required for its administration. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The chart here highlights the global decline of the <em>estimated</em> number of paralytic polio cases from 1980 onwards. In the peak year 1981, the number of paralytic polio cases are estimated to have exceeded 450,000 but were reduced to 43 cases in 2016 - a more than 100,000-fold reduction of paralytic polio cases. As of 2019, wild polio virus is endemic in only three countries: Afghanistan, Nigeria, and Pakistan. In 2018, 9 countries have reported samples (human or environmental) positive for vaccine-derived poliovirus.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:html --> <iframe style="width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;" src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-estimated-paralytic-polio-cases-by-world-region" width="300" height="150"></iframe> <!-- /wp:html --> <!-- wp:owid/prominent-link {"title":"Eradicating polio","linkUrl":"https://owid.cloud/polio","mediaId":18585,"mediaUrl":"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2018/04/reported-vs-estimated-total-number-of-paralytic-polio-cases-globally.png","mediaAlt":""} --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p> We provide detailed information on polio and its history in our comprehensive Polio entry.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- /wp:owid/prominent-link --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":3} --> <h3>Guinea worm disease (dracunculiasis)</h3> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Guinea worm disease is caused by <em>Dracunculus medinensis</em> worm. There is no vaccine against the disease, however, it can be successfully eliminated by identification and treatment of all current cases of the disease. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>In 2021, 15 cases of Guinea worm were reported, which were in Chad (8 cases), South Sudan (4 cases), Mali (2 cases), and Ethiopia (1 case).</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:owid/prominent-link {"title":"Guinea worm is on the path of being eradicated","linkUrl":"https://owid.cloud/guinea-worm-is-on-the-path-of-being-eradicated","mediaId":28176,"mediaUrl":"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2019/11/number-of-reported-guinea-worm-dracunculiasis-cases-scaled.png","mediaAlt":""} --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>You can read more about the disease and its eradication here.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- /wp:owid/prominent-link --> <!-- wp:html --> <iframe src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-reported-guinea-worm-dracunculiasis-cases?time=2021" width="300" height="150"></iframe> <!-- /wp:html --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":3} --> <h3>Lymphatic filariasis</h3> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Lymphatic filariasis is a disease caused by roundworms. It is not a fatal but highly debilitating disease. It causes the swelling of lymph nodes, which in turn can cause painful swelling of arms, legs and other parts of the body. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>In 2017 more than 62 million people lived with lymphatic filariasis. Majority of cases occur in Sub-Saharan Africa, South-Asia and Indonesia.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>While the lymphatic filariasis-causing roundworms are transmitted by mosquitoes, the transmission can be effectively stopped by preventive chemotherapy. WHO and its partners have been working on mass drug administration campaigns (MDAs) to stop the transmission of the diseases. Rather than targeting just the infected individuals, MDAs target groups of people living in endemic areas.{ref}<a class="" href="http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/275719/WER9344.pdf?ua=1">Global programme to eliminate lymphatic filariasis: progress report, 2017</a>{/ref}Since 2000 <strong>7.7 </strong>billion treatments preventive chemotherapy have been administered via MDA campaigns. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:html --> <iframe src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/prevalence-of-lymphatic-filariasis" style="width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;"></iframe> <!-- /wp:html --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":3} --> <h3>Measles, mumps and rubella</h3> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Measles, mumps and rubella are three viral diseases that can be prevented by child vaccination.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The only known hosts of these viruses are humans, which makes it a good target for eradication. One of the major obstacles for eradicating these diseases is the misperception of the seriousness of the disease in the public, which leads to <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/vaccination#measles-global-vaccination-coverage-and-decline-of-measles">insufficient vaccination rates</a>. Insufficient information on the disease prevalence and lacking means in developing countries are also important factors. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Combined, the World Health Organisation has registered more than 741,000 cases of these three diseases in 2017. This number is likely to be an underestimate since not all cases are reported to the WHO. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Measles is a highly contagious killer of young children globally, despite a safe and effective vaccine being available. In 2017 110,000 people died because of measles, the majority of whom were children younger than 5.{ref} Figures are updated by the WHO here: <a href="http://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/measles">http://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/measles</a> {/ref} The visualization here shows, the increase of the global vaccination coverage of one-year-olds and the simultaneous decline of reported cases of measles; from close to 1,000 cases per million people globally to 28 cases per million. This represents a 33-fold reduction.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Mumps infection occurs via direct human contact or by airborne droplets. It causes painful swelling at the side of the face under the ears (the parotid glands), fever, headache and muscle aches. It can cause sterility in teenagers and adults.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Rubella is usually mild in children but up to 90% of infections during pregnancy can result in complications and in approximately 20% of those cases result in fetal death.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:html --> <iframe src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/measles-vaccine-coverage-worldwide-vs-measles-cases-worldwide" style="width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;"></iframe> <!-- /wp:html --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":3} --> <h3>Cysticercosis</h3> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Cysticercosis is a parasitic tissue infection of tissues (including brain and muscle tissue) caused by larval cysts of the pork tapeworm (Taenia solium). In low income countries these infections are a major cause of adult onset seizures. More information on the disease can be found on the website of the CDC <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/parasites/cysticercosis/index.html">here</a>.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The <em>International Task Force for Disease Eradication</em> has put cysticercosis on a list of eradicable diseases back in 1993. However, the disease still affects millions of people globally. WHO estimates that 2.56–8.30 million people had neurocysticercosis in 2015.{ref}This includes both symptomatic and asymptomatic cases and is estimated based on data available for epilepsy. 80% of people with epilepsy live in areas affected by cysticercosis and of those 30% are thought to be caused by the tapeworm infection <a href="https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/taeniasis-cysticercosis">https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/taeniasis-cysticercosis</a>{/ref} The disease is caused by tapeworms, which can affect the nervous system and cause severe epileptic seizures. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The map here shows the estimated rate of prevalence of cysticercosis. As is shown, the disease is most prevalent in Mexico and countries in South America, and Sub-Saharan and Southern Africa. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Eradication of cysticercosis in humans relies on the ability to break the tapeworm transmission cycle between humans and pigs. This can effectively be done through sanitary measures and proper inspection and cooking of pork. Furthermore, vaccines against the tapeworm are now available for the use in pigs, and oxfendazole drug can be used to remove the tapeworm from animals.{ref}Maurice, J. (2014). <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(14)61353-2/fulltext">Of pigs and people—WHO prepares to battle cysticercosis</a>. <em>The Lancet</em>, <em>384</em>(9943), 571-572.{/ref}</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:html --> <iframe src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/prevalence-cysticercosis" style="width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;"></iframe> <!-- /wp:html --> <!-- wp:heading --> <h2>Diseases that could be eliminated in some parts of the world</h2> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The process of disease eradication is always ongoing. As new treatments become available and as we start to better understand the disease ecology new avenues open for the eradication of diseases. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>There is no one defined path for disease eradication. Eradication is usually the final goal, and control of disease spread or local disease elimination is usually a more near-future goal for most diseases. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>On the list of diseases that could potentially be eliminated in parts of the world are yaws, malaria, and trachoma.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":3} --> <h3>Yaws</h3> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Yaws is a disease caused by the bacterium <em>Treponema pallidum</em>. The disease results in painful skin lesions, which can extend to damage in bones and cartilage. The disease is rarely fatal, however highly debilitating. Humans are the only known hosts for the bacterium that causes yaws and infections can be successfully treated by a single dose of antibiotic azithromycin. These factors make the disease a good target for eradication. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The exact burden of the disease is not known, primarily because of the lack of a global monitoring system for the disease. The world map visualizes the data that is available – a country’s status of endemicity in 2021. Fifteen countries are known to be endemic for the disease. Many other countries, which were previously endemic, don't monitor the disease and their status is therefore unknown, these countries are shown in yellow on the map. Countries where yaws is currently endemic are depicted in orange on the map.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Thanks to determined mass treatment and monitoring, India has eliminated yaws. India is colored green in the map.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>On Our World in Data Sophie Ochmann and Hannah Behrens discuss the prospects for eradicating yaws in <em><a href="https://ourworldindata.org/can-the-world-eradicate-another-disease">Can the world eradicate another disease?</a></em></p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:html --> <iframe src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/status-of-yaws-endemicity" style="width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;"></iframe> <!-- /wp:html --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":3} --> <h3>Trachoma</h3> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Trachoma is a disease caused by the bacterium <em>Chlamydia trachomatis</em>. The disease affects eyes and causes blindness. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The map shows the global prevalence of trachoma. Limited information is available on the surveillance of the disease. The WHO states that 1.9 million people live with trachoma-caused blindness, and 142 million people are at risk of infection.{ref}See the WHO information on trachoma here: <a href="https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/trachoma#">https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/trachoma#</a>{/ref}</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Trachoma can be prevented by sanitary measures such as <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/water-access">access to clean water</a> and facial cleanliness. Mass administration of antibiotics can successfully stop disease transmission and surgery can reverse blindness caused by the disease. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:html --> <iframe src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/trachoma-prevalence-age-standardized-ihme" style="width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;"></iframe> <!-- /wp:html --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":3} --> <h3>Onchocerciasis</h3> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Onchocerciasis, also called river blindness, is an eye infection caused by a parasitic worm. The disease leads to blindness, skin damage and sometimes epilepsy. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The Global Burden of Disease study has estimated that the prevalence of river blindness was 20.9 million in 2017; 1.2 million of these cases resulted in blindness, 14.7 related in skin lesions and 5 million were asymptomatic.{ref}James, S. L., Abate, D., Abate, K. H., Abay, S. M., Abbafati, C., Abbasi, N., ... & Abdollahpour, I. (2018). <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(18)32279-7/fulltext">Global, regional, and national incidence, prevalence, and years lived with disability for 354 diseases and injuries for 195 countries and territories, 1990–2017: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017</a>. <em>The Lancet</em>, <em>392</em>(10159), 1789-1858.{/ref} Prevalence of onchocerciasis is shown in the map. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Recent evidence suggests that mass drug administration with coverage of at least 80% can stop disease transmission.{ref}Hill, E., Hall, J., Letourneau, I. D., Donkers, K., Shirude, S., Pigott, D. M., ... & Cromwell, E. A. (2019). <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41597-019-0079-5">A database of geopositioned onchocerciasis prevalence data.</a> <em>Scientific data</em>, <em>6</em>(1), 67.{/ref}</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:html --> <iframe src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/prevalence-of-onchocerciasis" style="width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;"></iframe> <!-- /wp:html --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":3} --> <h3>Malaria</h3> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p> The Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) provides estimates of malaria deaths from the year 1990 onwards. Over this period we see a clear rise-peak-fall trend, increasing from around 670,000 deaths in 1990; peaking at around 930,000 in 2004; and then declining (although at varying rates) to around 620,000 in 2017.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The Bill & Melinda Gates foundation proposed a plan to end malaria by 2040.{ref}<a href="http://endmalaria2040.org/">http://endmalaria2040.org/</a>{/ref} The eradication plan largely relies on the development of new ways to prevent and treat the disease, such as effective vaccines, longer-lasting bed-nets and parasite resistance management programs.{ref}Feachem, R. G., Chen, I., Akbari, O., Bertozzi-Villa, A., Bhatt, S., Binka, F., ... & Eapen, A. (2019). <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673619311390">Malaria eradication within a generation: ambitious, achievable, and necessary. </a><em>The Lancet</em>, <em>394</em>(10203), 1056-1112.{/ref} It is estimated that an increase in funding (at least a doubling of funding between 2015 and 2025 to annual costs of $6 billion) is also required. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:owid/prominent-link {"title":"More about malaria","linkUrl":"https://owid.cloud/malaria","mediaId":23234,"mediaUrl":"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2019/04/Previous-prevalence-of-malaria-world-map.png","mediaAlt":""} --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>You can read more about malaria, its history and the efforts to reduce its burden in our entry on the topic.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- /wp:owid/prominent-link --> <!-- wp:html --> <iframe src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/malaria-deaths-by-region" style="width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;"></iframe> <!-- /wp:html --> <!-- wp:heading --> <h2>Useful references</h2> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":4} --> <h4>Hopkins (2013) – Disease Eradication</h4> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:list --> <ul><li><strong>Description:</strong> A good summary of the methods available to eradicate Guinea worm disease, polio, malaria, lymphatic filariasis and river blindness. Figure 1 of the paper is especially helpful as an illustrated summary.</li><li><strong>Date of publication:</strong> 3 January 2013</li><li><strong>Available at:</strong> <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMra1200391" target="_blank">http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMra1200391</a></li></ul> <!-- /wp:list --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":4} --> <h4>Online publication <em>The History of Vaccines</em></h4> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:list --> <ul><li><strong>Description:</strong> This web publication is published by <em>The College of Physicians of Philadelphia</em> and describes disease eradication in general, but also discusses specific vaccine-preventable diseases (found in the table of content on the left) in an accessible and interactive way.</li><li><strong>Date of publication:</strong> Last updated 25 January 2018</li><li><strong>Available at:</strong> <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.historyofvaccines.org/content/articles/disease-eradication" target="_blank">https://www.historyofvaccines.org/content/articles/disease-eradication</a></li></ul> <!-- /wp:list --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":4} --> <h4>Hemingway (2017) – The way forward for vector control</h4> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:list --> <ul><li><strong>Description:</strong> This article discusses how vector-borne diseases, specifically with insects like malaria, can be controlled, eliminated or even eradicated.</li><li><strong>Date of publication:</strong> 24 November 2017</li><li><strong>Available at:</strong> <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/358/6366/998" target="_blank">http://science.sciencemag.org/content/358/6366/998</a></li></ul> <!-- /wp:list --> <!-- wp:heading --> <h2>Data sources</h2> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>We provide all data sources for this entry on a separate <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/sources-for-eradication-of-diseases" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">page</a>.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> | { "id": "wp-4342", "slug": "eradication-of-diseases", "content": { "toc": [], "body": [ { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "This article was first published in June 2014; last revised in October 2018.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "children": [ { "text": "Related entries:", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-bold" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "list", "items": [ { "type": "text", "value": [ { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/smallpox", "children": [ { "text": "Smallpox", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": " \u2013 How was smallpox eradicated?", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/polio", "children": [ { "text": "Polio", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": " \u2013 Just a generation ago polio paralyzed hundreds of thousands of children every year. 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(1999) The principles of disease elimination and eradication.\u00a0", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "Bulletin of the World Health Organization", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": ". 1998;76 (Suppl 2):22-25. Online ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2305684/", "children": [ { "text": "here", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": ".{/ref}", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Eradication means that intervention measures are no longer required, the agent, which previously caused the disease is no longer present. ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "list", "items": [ { "type": "text", "value": [ { "children": [ { "text": "Elimination", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": "\u00a0of a disease refers to the deliberate effort that leads to the reduction to zero of the incidence of infection caused by a specific agent in a defined geographic area. A disease can be eliminated from a specific region without being eradicated globally. Actions to prevent the disease from transmitting or re-emerging are still required once a disease is eliminated.{ref}Dowdle, WR. (1999) The principles of disease elimination and eradication.\u00a0", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "Bulletin of the World Health Organization", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": ". 1998;76 (Suppl 2):22-25. Online ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2305684/", "children": [ { "text": "here", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": ".{/ref}", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "horizontal-rule", "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Disease eradication is an ongoing process", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 1, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "horizontal-rule", "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "So far, the world has eradicated two diseases \u2014 smallpox and rinderpest. How many other diseases could we eradicate?", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "In this entry we are primarily guided by the list of eradicable diseases provided by The International Task Force for Disease Eradication (ITFDE). ITFDE was formed in 1988 at the The Carter Center; it is supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and advises bodies such as the World Health Organisation on various aspects of disease eradication.{ref}", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://www.cartercenter.org/health/itfde/index.html", "children": [ { "text": "https://www.cartercenter.org/health/itfde/index.html", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": "{/ref} ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "The table here shows the two diseases which the world has eradicated and the seven diseases that ITFDE has listed as potentially eradicable.{ref}", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://www.cartercenter.org/resources/pdfs/news/health_publications/itfde/updated_disease_candidate_table.pdf", "children": [ { "text": "Recommendations of the International Task Force for Disease Eradication (2008). ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": "{/ref} These diseases are \u2014 polio, Guinea worm disease, lymphatic filariasis, cysticercosis, measles, mumps and rubella. These diseases are considered eradicable diseases because they satisfy the criteria for disease eradication discussed below in this entry. ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Which diseases can be eradicated and when it can be done is a topic of an ongoing discussion. The following examples illustrate the point:", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "While ITFDE has placed seven diseases on its eradicable diseases list, the WHO currently suggests that polio and Guinea worm disease are eradicable while lymphatic filariasis, cysticercosis, measles, mumps and rubella could be eliminated from some parts of the world. ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Even for diseases where possibility of eradication has been agreed upon, the date when it will happen remains a moving target. The timeline for Guinea worm disease eradication was first set for 1991, then moved to 2009, then to 2015, then to 2020 and is currently set for 2030. {ref}The, Lancet.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(19)30738-X/fulltext", "children": [ { "text": " \"Guinea worm disease eradication: a moving target.\"", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "children": [ { "text": "Lancet (London, England)", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": "\u00a0393.10178 (2019): 1261.{/ref} ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Global Malaria Eradication Program was established in 1955 to eradicate malaria, but it was abandoned in 1969. Today, however, a renewed focus on malaria eradication has emerged, with the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation proposing a plan to end malaria by 2040.{ref}", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "http://endmalaria2040.org/", "children": [ { "text": "http://endmalaria2040.org/", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": "{/ref} ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "All these examples illustrate that disease eradication is an ongoing process. As science discovers new facts about diseases and researchers invent new ways to tackle them the world has to change its perspective on which goals are feasible now and which ones are not yet. ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Infectious diseases that have been eradicated and could be eradicated in the future{ref}Polio cases in 2017 and case-fatality estimates are based on CDC data - found ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "http:// https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/68/wr/mm6820a3.htm#T2_down", "children": [ { "text": "here", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": " and ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "http:// https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/polio.html", "children": [ { "text": "here", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": ". ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 5, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Guinea worm disease cases since 1989 are reported by the Carter Foundation - found ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://www.cartercenter.org/resources/pdfs/news/health_publications/guinea_worm/guinea-worm-cases-by-year-from-1989.pdf", "children": [ { "text": "here", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": ".", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Measles, mumps and rubella reported cases for 2017 are taken from the WHO - found ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "http://apps.who.int/immunization_monitoring/globalsummary/timeseries/tsincidencemeasles.html", "children": [ { "text": "here", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": ".", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Measles case-fatality estimate is from CDC - found ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/downloads/meas.pdf", "children": [ { "text": "here", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": ".", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Mumps case-fatality estimate is from WHO - found ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://www.who.int/immunization/monitoring_surveillance/burden/vpd/surveillance_type/passive/mumps_standards/en/", "children": [ { "text": "here", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": ".", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Cysticercosis case estimate is from WHO - found here. And case-fatality from papers published ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "http://repositorio.ufc.br/bitstream/riufc/15032/1/2016_art_frmmelo.pdf ", "children": [ { "text": "here", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": " and ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "http:// https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2725874/", "children": [ { "text": "here", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": ".{/ref}", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "html", "value": "<div class=\"raw-html-table__container\"><table><thead><tr><th scope=\"col\" colspan=\"1\">Disease</th><th scope=\"col\" colspan=\"1\">Burden of disease</th><th scope=\"col\" colspan=\"1\">Cause</th><th scope=\"col\" colspan=\"1\">Ways to eradicate</th><th scope=\"col\" colspan=\"1\">Fatality</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td colspan=\"1\" rowspan=\"1\">Smallpox</td><td colspan=\"1\" rowspan=\"1\">Declared eradicated in 1980</td><td colspan=\"1\" rowspan=\"1\">Variola virus</td><td colspan=\"1\" rowspan=\"1\">Eradicated using vaccination</td><td colspan=\"1\" rowspan=\"1\">30%</td></tr><tr><td colspan=\"1\" rowspan=\"1\">Rinderpest</td><td colspan=\"1\" rowspan=\"1\">Declared eradicated in 2011</td><td colspan=\"1\" rowspan=\"1\">Rinderpest virus</td><td colspan=\"1\" rowspan=\"1\">Sanitary measures and vaccination</td><td colspan=\"1\" rowspan=\"1\">100%</td></tr><tr><td colspan=\"1\" rowspan=\"1\">Poliomielitis</td><td colspan=\"1\" rowspan=\"1\">116 cases in 2017</td><td colspan=\"1\" rowspan=\"1\">Poliovirus</td><td colspan=\"1\" rowspan=\"1\">Vaccination</td><td colspan=\"1\" rowspan=\"1\">For paralytic polio 2-5% in children and increases to 15-30% in adults</td></tr><tr><td colspan=\"1\" rowspan=\"1\">Guinea worm disease</td><td colspan=\"1\" rowspan=\"1\">30 cases in 2017</td><td colspan=\"1\" rowspan=\"1\">Parasitic worm Dracunculus medinensis</td><td colspan=\"1\" rowspan=\"1\">Hygiene, water decontamination and health education</td><td colspan=\"1\" rowspan=\"1\">Not fatal but debilitating</td></tr><tr><td colspan=\"1\" rowspan=\"1\">Measles</td><td colspan=\"1\" rowspan=\"1\">173,457 reported cases to WHO in 2017</td><td colspan=\"1\" rowspan=\"1\">Measles morbillivirus</td><td colspan=\"1\" rowspan=\"1\">Vaccination</td><td colspan=\"1\" rowspan=\"1\">15%</td></tr><tr><td colspan=\"1\" rowspan=\"1\">Mumps</td><td colspan=\"1\" rowspan=\"1\">560,622 reported cases to WHO in 2017</td><td colspan=\"1\" rowspan=\"1\">Mumps orthorubulavirus</td><td colspan=\"1\" rowspan=\"1\">Vaccination</td><td colspan=\"1\" rowspan=\"1\">0.01% for mumps-caused encephalitis</td></tr><tr><td colspan=\"1\" rowspan=\"1\">Rubella</td><td colspan=\"1\" rowspan=\"1\">6,789 reported cases to WHO in 2017</td><td colspan=\"1\" rowspan=\"1\">Rubella virus</td><td colspan=\"1\" rowspan=\"1\">Vaccination</td><td colspan=\"1\" rowspan=\"1\">Not reported</td></tr><tr><td colspan=\"1\" rowspan=\"1\">Lymphatic filariasis</td><td colspan=\"1\" rowspan=\"1\">No estimate available. In 2014, 68 million people were infected and 790 million people where at risk of infection</td><td colspan=\"1\" rowspan=\"1\">Roundworms: \nW. bancrofti, \nB. malayi, \nB. timori</td><td colspan=\"1\" rowspan=\"1\">Preventive chemotherapy</td><td colspan=\"1\" rowspan=\"1\">Not fatal but highly debilitating</td></tr><tr><td colspan=\"1\" rowspan=\"1\">Cysticercosis</td><td colspan=\"1\" rowspan=\"1\">2.56\u20138.30 million cases estimated by the WHO</td><td colspan=\"1\" rowspan=\"1\">Tapeworms: \nT. solium, \nT. saginata, \nT. asiatica</td><td colspan=\"1\" rowspan=\"1\">Sanitation and health education. Vaccination of pigs</td><td colspan=\"1\" rowspan=\"1\">Varies between countries <1-30%</td></tr></tbody></table></div>", "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "horizontal-rule", "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "What makes a disease eradicable?", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 1, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "horizontal-rule", "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Louis Pasteur once said that \u201c", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "it is within the power of man to eradicate infection from the earth", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": "\u201d.{ref}Dubos, Ren\u00e9 Jules, and Jean Dubos. ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "The white plague: tuberculosis, man, and society", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": ". p228. Rutgers University Press, 1987.{/ref} That power has so far eradicated two infectious diseases: smallpox and rinderpest. We are also getting closer to eradicating polio and Guinea worm disease. But can we eradicate ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "all", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": " infection from the world?", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "spanType": "span-newline" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "For a disease eradication to be feasible and an option worth considering it needs to meet certain criteria. Below we highlight some of these criteria. Notably, these criteria are not set in stone. Eradication of diseases is an ongoing process, as we learn more about diseases and find new ways to treat them we may find that some of these criteria become obsolete or that disease that were once considered not to fulfill any of these requirements begin to tick all the boxes.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "spanType": "span-newline" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Key requirements for disease eradication", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 2, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "There are several required aspects of a disease that need to be fulfilled in order for a disease to be considered eradicable:", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "list", "items": [ { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "It needs to be an ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "infectious", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": " disease", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "We need to have ways to either prevent or treat the infection", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "For a disease to be eradicable it needs to be a disease you can \"catch\" from other humans or animals, that is it has to be infectious. Non-infectious diseases, such as heart disease or cancer, cannot be eradicated.{ref}There are also certain metabolic diseases that could be cured in all humans provided sufficient nutrition. These are mainly vitamin or essential element deficiencies such as scurvy (lack of vitamin C) or ion deficiency disorders. However, while it is theoretically possible that no human in the world would have one of these metabolic diseases at some point in time, these diseases will never be eradicated because they will return if a person's nutritional status changes.{/ref}", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Without an effective treatment against a disease there is no possibility of eradicating it. The treatment can be either preventative, such as vaccination, or curative, such as drugs that can completely eliminate the pathogen that causes the disease from its host.\u00a0", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Disease aspects that make eradication more likely", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 2, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "In addition the the key requirements there are many other aspects of the disease that should be considered in the efforts to eradicate it:", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "list", "items": [ { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "How many pathogens cause the disease?", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Does the disease-causing pathogen have one or more hosts?", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Are there any identifiable symptoms of the disease?", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Has regional disease elimination proven possible?\u00a0", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Is the perceived disease burden high and is financial and political support available?", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "How many pathogens cause the disease?", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 3, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "The more pathogens cause the disease the more difficult it will be to eradicate. If a disease is caused by a limited number and closely related pathogens then often same tools and approaches can be used in eradication efforts. For example, smallpox was caused by two types of variola virus and the same vaccine was used to prevent it. Contrast this to a disease such as ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/pneumonia#", "children": [ { "text": "pneumonia", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": ", which is caused by ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/pneumonia#what-pathogens-cause-pneumonia", "children": [ { "text": "multiple pathogens", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": "- from bacteria to viruses - each of which requires a different treatment.\u00a0", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Does the disease-causing pathogen have one or more hosts?", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 3, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Diseases with multiple hosts are difficult to target for eradication because it often means that the disease will have to be eradicated in all of them.{ref}Notably of course, rinderpest \u2014 one of the two eradicated diseases, had multiple animal hosts.\u00a0", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "spanType": "span-newline" }, { "text": "{/ref} Pathogens, which cause diseases such as poliomielitis, measles, mumps, rubella, diphtheria and whooping cough, all have a single host \u2014 humans. But single-host pathogens are generally an exception rather than a rule. Case-in-point, the 2020 eradication target for Guinea worm disease had to be postponed, because we learned about high-rates of transmission of the Guinea worm between dog populations, which may be a source for new human infections.{ref}Eberhard, M. L., Ruiz-Tiben, E., Hopkins, D. R., Farrell, C., Toe, F., Weiss, A., \u2026 & Hance, Z. (2014). ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "http://www.ajtmh.org/content/journals/10.4269/ajtmh.13-0554", "children": [ { "text": "The peculiar epidemiology of dracunculiasis in Chad.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "children": [ { "text": "The American journal of tropical medicine and hygiene", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": ", ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "90", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": "(1), 61-70.{/ref}", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Are there any identifiable symptoms of the disease?", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 3, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Some diseases are not easy to detect in the first place. 1.7 billion people live with latent tuberculosis infection today.{ref}\u00a0World Health Organization. ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/329368/9789241565714-eng.pdf?ua=1", "children": [ { "text": "\"Global tuberculosis report 2019.\"", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "children": [ { "text": "Global tuberculosis report 2019", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": ". 2019.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "spanType": "span-newline" }, { "text": "{/ref} Because latent TB has no symptoms, identifying every single individual that has latent TB infection, unless we test every person in the world, is not possible.\u00a0", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "For other diseases even when symptoms may be visible or detectable, the stigma surrounding the disease may limit our ability to treat it. Hepatitis C is a disease that fits most eradication criteria, however, because the disease has a high prevalence among drug users, there is a stigma attached to being identified as an infected individual, making it difficult to identify all the cases.\u00a0\u00a0", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Has regional disease elimination proven possible?", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 3, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Disease eradication is usually achieved one step at a time. A proof-of-concept eradication in one region is a positive indicator that eradication at a larger scale is possible. Once the disease elimination has been achieved on a smaller scale, a greater support for the feasibility of elimination elsewhere can be gathered.\u00a0", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Is the perceived disease burden high and is financial and political support available?", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 3, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "The perceived burden of a disease, the estimated cost of eradication, and the political stability of affected countries are further factors that determine the eradicability of diseases. Polio is a good example here. Polio eradication efforts illustrate the powerful impact of both a unified international effort and a local political support.\u00a0", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "In 1988, the Global Polio Eradication Initiative was set-up to provide a large-scale continued support for the eradication of polio. Since then, the number of paralytic polio cases has been greatly reduced such that in 2018 it was considered endemic in only three countries: Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Nigeria.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "But polio also illustrates that positive developments might reverse. Nigeria\u2019s case numbers surged from 202 in 2002 to 1,143 in 2006 because of rumors that polio vaccination was a covert affair to cause infertility and spread HIV in the local communities, which ultimately lead to an 11-month vaccination boycott.{ref}\u00a0Larson, H., & Ghinai, I. (2011). ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "http://www.globe-network.org/sites/default/files/documents/public/en/news-and-events/news/2011/lessons-from-polio-eradication.pdf", "children": [ { "text": "Lessons from polio eradication", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": ". ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "Nature, 473", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": "(7348), 446-447.\u00a0", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "spanType": "span-newline" }, { "text": "{/ref} This example illustrates that eradication efforts have to span from international to national and community levels in order to be successful.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "horizontal-rule", "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "What are the benefits of eradicating diseases?", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 1, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "horizontal-rule", "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "The immediate benefit of eradicating a disease is obvious \u2014 ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "preventing suffering and saving people\u2019s lives", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": ".", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "But eradicating a disease can also have significant economic benefits. Disease eradication takes years to achieve and requires a lot of financial investment: smallpox eradication had an ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/smallpox#costs-of-smallpox-and-its-eradication", "children": [ { "text": "estimated cost of $300 million", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": " over a 10-year period; polio eradication efforts to date amounted to $4.5 billion.{ref} Lahariya, C. (2007). ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/85/6/06-037457/en/", "children": [ { "text": "Global eradication of polio: the case for\" finishing the job\".", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "children": [ { "text": "Bulletin of the World Health Organization", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": ",\u00a0", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "85", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": ", 487-492.{/ref} But, as the chart here illustrates, while the initial costs of disease eradication efforts are high, in the long-term these costs pay-off. Simply controlling a disease can be more expensive because of the continued burden a disease poses on a healthcare system and the lost productivity of a sick population.\u00a0", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "How much we should spend on eradicating a disease? There will always be other good causes we can spend money on. These include non-health causes, health causes with greater burden, eradication of different diseases, and even research into more cost effective treatments instead of eradication. The scenario or intervention which brings the highest benefit needs to be assessed for each disease separately.\u00a0\u00a0", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "spanType": "span-newline" }, { "text": "As a classical paper by Walter R. Dowdle\u2019s classical paper on disease eradication states: ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "\u201cElimination and eradication are the ultimate goals of public health. The only question is whether these goals are to be achieved in the present or [by] some future generation\".", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": "{ref}Dowdle, WR. (1999) ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2305684/", "children": [ { "text": "The principles of disease elimination and eradication.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "children": [ { "text": "Bulletin of the World Health Organization", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": ". 1998;76(Suppl 2):22-25.{/ref}", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Eradicating vs controlling a disease: schematic comparison of the costs", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 5, "parseErrors": [] }, { "alt": "", "size": "wide", "type": "image", "filename": "Costs-of-controlling-vs-eradicating-a-disease-1.png", "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "horizontal-rule", "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Successfully eradicated diseases", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 1, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "horizontal-rule", "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "The world has successfuly eradicated two diseases:", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "list", "items": [ { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Smallpox was declared\u00a0eradicated\u00a0in 1980", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Rinderpest was declared eradicated in 2011 ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Smallpox: 200 years between vaccine and the disease eradication", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 2, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "The last recorded case of smallpox occurred in 1977 in Somalia. The disease was officially declared eradicated by the World Health Organization in 1980.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "From the invention of vaccine against smallpox by Edward Jenner in 1796, it took almost two centuries to eradicate the disease. ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "It was only with the establishment of the World Health Organization in the aftermath of World War II that international quality standards for the production of smallpox vaccines were introduced and the fight against smallpox moved from national to an international agenda. In 1966, the WHO launched the Intensified Smallpox Eradication Program. By then\u00a0smallpox cases and deaths in Europe and North America had been driven down substantially but large parts of Asia and Africa still struggled under smallpox\u2019s disease burden.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Shown in the chart are the number of reported smallpox cases from 1920 until the last case in 1977. Even though smallpox had high visibility and should therefore have been relatively easy to document, the lack of an international organization dedicated to global health means the number of cases was likely much greater.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "The world map illustrates the year the variola virus (the virus that caused smallpox) was no longer endemic in a country.{ref}A disease is no longer endemic when\u00a0uninterrupted circulation is not happening anymore. This means that there could have been cases after a country had eliminated smallpox but these were imported from an endemic country.{/ref}", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/decade-in-which-smallpox-ceased-to-be-endemic-by-country", "type": "chart", "parseErrors": [] }, { "url": "https://owid.cloud/smallpox", "type": "prominent-link", "title": "More about smallpox", "description": "You can find out more about the disease and its history in our much more comprehensive\u00a0Smallpox entry.", "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Rinderpest: eradication began before vaccine against the disease was available", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 2, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Rinderpest is the only animal disease that has been eradicated so far. Rinderpest outbreaks in cattles used to cause devastating losses for animal farmers. The eradication efforts began in the 1920s before the vaccine against the rinderpest virus was even available. Measures such as animal quarantine and slaughter were used to contain the disease.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "The map here shows the last year in which cases of rinderpest were reported in a country. In 1960 an English veterinary scientist Walter Plowright\u00a0has developed a vaccine against rinderpest, which finally led to its eradication. 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", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "The chart here highlights the global decline of the\u00a0", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "estimated", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": " number of paralytic polio cases\u00a0from 1980 onwards. In the peak year 1981, the number of paralytic polio cases are estimated to have exceeded 450,000 but were reduced to 43 cases in 2016 - a more than 100,000-fold reduction of paralytic polio cases.\u00a0As of 2019, wild polio virus is endemic in only three countries: Afghanistan, Nigeria, and Pakistan. 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There is no vaccine against the disease, however, it can be successfully eliminated by identification and treatment of all current cases of the disease. 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", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/prevalence-of-lymphatic-filariasis", "type": "chart", "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Measles, mumps and rubella", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 2, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Measles, mumps and rubella are three viral diseases that can be prevented by child vaccination.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "The only known hosts of these viruses are humans, which makes it a good target for eradication. 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This number is likely to be an underestimate since not all cases are reported to the WHO.\u00a0", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Measles is a highly contagious killer of young children globally, despite a safe and effective vaccine being available. In 2017 110,000 people died because of measles, the majority of whom were children younger than 5.{ref} Figures are updated by the WHO here: ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "http://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/measles", "children": [ { "text": "http://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/measles", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": " {/ref} The visualization here shows,\u00a0 the increase of the global vaccination coverage of one-year-olds and the simultaneous decline of reported cases of measles; from close to 1,000 cases per million people globally to 28 cases per million. This represents a 33-fold reduction.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Mumps infection occurs via direct human contact or by airborne droplets. It causes painful swelling at the side of the face under the ears (the parotid glands), fever, headache and muscle aches. 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WHO estimates that 2.56\u20138.30 million people had neurocysticercosis in 2015.{ref}This includes both symptomatic and asymptomatic cases and is estimated based on data available for epilepsy. 80% of people with epilepsy live in areas affected by cysticercosis and of those 30% are thought to be caused by the tapeworm infection\u00a0 ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/taeniasis-cysticercosis", "children": [ { "text": "https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/taeniasis-cysticercosis", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": "{/ref} The disease is caused by tapeworms, which can affect the nervous system and cause severe epileptic seizures.\u00a0", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "The map here shows the estimated rate of prevalence of cysticercosis. 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", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "On the list of diseases that could potentially be eliminated in parts of the world are yaws, malaria, and trachoma.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Yaws", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 2, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Yaws is a disease caused by the bacterium\u00a0", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "Treponema pallidum", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": ". The disease results in painful skin lesions, which can extend to damage in bones and cartilage. The disease is rarely fatal, however highly debilitating. Humans are the only known hosts for the bacterium that causes yaws and infections can be successfully treated by a single dose of antibiotic azithromycin. 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India is colored green in the map.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "On Our World in Data Sophie Ochmann and Hannah Behrens discuss the prospects for eradicating yaws in ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/can-the-world-eradicate-another-disease", "children": [ { "text": "Can the world eradicate another disease?", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/status-of-yaws-endemicity", "type": "chart", "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Trachoma", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 2, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Trachoma is a disease caused by the bacterium ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "Chlamydia trachomatis", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": ". The disease affects eyes and causes blindness. ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "The map shows the global prevalence of trachoma. Limited information is available on the surveillance of the disease. The WHO states that 1.9 million people live with trachoma-caused blindness, and 142 million people are at risk of infection.{ref}See the WHO information on trachoma here: ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/trachoma#", "children": [ { "text": "https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/trachoma#", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": "{/ref}", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Trachoma can be prevented by sanitary measures such as ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/water-access", "children": [ { "text": "access to clean water", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": " and facial cleanliness. Mass administration of antibiotics can successfully stop disease transmission and surgery can reverse blindness caused by the disease. ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/trachoma-prevalence-age-standardized-ihme", "type": "chart", "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Onchocerciasis", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 2, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Onchocerciasis, also called river blindness, is an eye infection caused by a parasitic worm. The disease leads to blindness, skin damage and sometimes epilepsy. ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "The Global Burden of Disease study has estimated that the prevalence of river blindness was 20.9 million in 2017; 1.2 million of these cases resulted in blindness, 14.7 related in skin lesions and 5 million were asymptomatic.{ref}James, S. L., Abate, D., Abate, K. H., Abay, S. M., Abbafati, C., Abbasi, N., ... & Abdollahpour, I. (2018). 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2014-06-03 22:59:55 | 2024-02-16 14:22:38 | [ "Max Roser", "Sophie Ochmann", "Hannah Behrens", "Hannah Ritchie", "Bernadeta Dadonaite" ] |
Which ones could we eradicate in our lifetimes and how? | 2019-11-21 15:47:05 | 2023-06-18 16:42:48 | https://ourworldindata.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/the-number-of-infections-from-eradicable-diseases.png | {} |
This article was first published in June 2014; last revised in October 2018. **Related entries:** * [Smallpox](https://ourworldindata.org/smallpox) – How was smallpox eradicated? * [Polio](https://ourworldindata.org/polio) – Just a generation ago polio paralyzed hundreds of thousands of children every year. Now the world can possibly eradicate it. * [Vaccination](https://ourworldindata.org/vaccination) – Vaccines protect from diseases and are key to many eradication efforts. **Related writing:** **[See all interactive charts on eradication of diseases ↓](#all-charts)** * [Can the world eradicate another disease?](https://ourworldindata.org/can-the-world-eradicate-another-disease) * [Rinderpest was eradicated](https://ourworldindata.org/how-rinderpest-was-eradicated) ## “Eradication” versus “Elimination” The e_radication_ of a disease is permanent and global, while the _elimination_ of a disease is an achievement restricted to a specific geographic area. * _Eradication _of a disease refers to a deliberate effort that leads to the permanent reduction to zero of the worldwide incidence of infection caused by a specific agent.{ref}Dowdle, WR. (1999) The principles of disease elimination and eradication. _Bulletin of the World Health Organization_. 1998;76 (Suppl 2):22-25. Online [here](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2305684/).{/ref} Eradication means that intervention measures are no longer required, the agent, which previously caused the disease is no longer present. * _Elimination_ of a disease refers to the deliberate effort that leads to the reduction to zero of the incidence of infection caused by a specific agent in a defined geographic area. A disease can be eliminated from a specific region without being eradicated globally. Actions to prevent the disease from transmitting or re-emerging are still required once a disease is eliminated.{ref}Dowdle, WR. (1999) The principles of disease elimination and eradication. _Bulletin of the World Health Organization_. 1998;76 (Suppl 2):22-25. Online [here](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2305684/).{/ref} --- # Disease eradication is an ongoing process --- So far, the world has eradicated two diseases — smallpox and rinderpest. How many other diseases could we eradicate? In this entry we are primarily guided by the list of eradicable diseases provided by The International Task Force for Disease Eradication (ITFDE). ITFDE was formed in 1988 at the The Carter Center; it is supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and advises bodies such as the World Health Organisation on various aspects of disease eradication.{ref}[https://www.cartercenter.org/health/itfde/index.html](https://www.cartercenter.org/health/itfde/index.html){/ref} The table here shows the two diseases which the world has eradicated and the seven diseases that ITFDE has listed as potentially eradicable.{ref}[Recommendations of the International Task Force for Disease Eradication (2008). ](https://www.cartercenter.org/resources/pdfs/news/health_publications/itfde/updated_disease_candidate_table.pdf){/ref} These diseases are — polio, Guinea worm disease, lymphatic filariasis, cysticercosis, measles, mumps and rubella. These diseases are considered eradicable diseases because they satisfy the criteria for disease eradication discussed below in this entry. Which diseases can be eradicated and when it can be done is a topic of an ongoing discussion. The following examples illustrate the point: While ITFDE has placed seven diseases on its eradicable diseases list, the WHO currently suggests that polio and Guinea worm disease are eradicable while lymphatic filariasis, cysticercosis, measles, mumps and rubella could be eliminated from some parts of the world. Even for diseases where possibility of eradication has been agreed upon, the date when it will happen remains a moving target. The timeline for Guinea worm disease eradication was first set for 1991, then moved to 2009, then to 2015, then to 2020 and is currently set for 2030. {ref}The, Lancet.[ "Guinea worm disease eradication: a moving target."](https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(19)30738-X/fulltext)_Lancet (London, England)_ 393.10178 (2019): 1261.{/ref} Global Malaria Eradication Program was established in 1955 to eradicate malaria, but it was abandoned in 1969. Today, however, a renewed focus on malaria eradication has emerged, with the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation proposing a plan to end malaria by 2040.{ref}[http://endmalaria2040.org/](http://endmalaria2040.org/){/ref} All these examples illustrate that disease eradication is an ongoing process. As science discovers new facts about diseases and researchers invent new ways to tackle them the world has to change its perspective on which goals are feasible now and which ones are not yet. ##### Infectious diseases that have been eradicated and could be eradicated in the future{ref}Polio cases in 2017 and case-fatality estimates are based on CDC data - found [here](http:// https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/68/wr/mm6820a3.htm#T2_down) and [here](http:// https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/polio.html). Guinea worm disease cases since 1989 are reported by the Carter Foundation - found [here](https://www.cartercenter.org/resources/pdfs/news/health_publications/guinea_worm/guinea-worm-cases-by-year-from-1989.pdf). Measles, mumps and rubella reported cases for 2017 are taken from the WHO - found [here](http://apps.who.int/immunization_monitoring/globalsummary/timeseries/tsincidencemeasles.html). Measles case-fatality estimate is from CDC - found [here](https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/downloads/meas.pdf). Mumps case-fatality estimate is from WHO - found [here](https://www.who.int/immunization/monitoring_surveillance/burden/vpd/surveillance_type/passive/mumps_standards/en/). Cysticercosis case estimate is from WHO - found here. And case-fatality from papers published [here](http://repositorio.ufc.br/bitstream/riufc/15032/1/2016_art_frmmelo.pdf ) and [here](http:// https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2725874/).{/ref} <div class="raw-html-table__container"><table><thead><tr><th scope="col" colspan="1">Disease</th><th scope="col" colspan="1">Burden of disease</th><th scope="col" colspan="1">Cause</th><th scope="col" colspan="1">Ways to eradicate</th><th scope="col" colspan="1">Fatality</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td colspan="1" rowspan="1">Smallpox</td><td colspan="1" rowspan="1">Declared eradicated in 1980</td><td colspan="1" rowspan="1">Variola virus</td><td colspan="1" rowspan="1">Eradicated using vaccination</td><td colspan="1" rowspan="1">30%</td></tr><tr><td colspan="1" rowspan="1">Rinderpest</td><td colspan="1" rowspan="1">Declared eradicated in 2011</td><td colspan="1" rowspan="1">Rinderpest virus</td><td colspan="1" rowspan="1">Sanitary measures and vaccination</td><td colspan="1" rowspan="1">100%</td></tr><tr><td colspan="1" rowspan="1">Poliomielitis</td><td colspan="1" rowspan="1">116 cases in 2017</td><td colspan="1" rowspan="1">Poliovirus</td><td colspan="1" rowspan="1">Vaccination</td><td colspan="1" rowspan="1">For paralytic polio 2-5% in children and increases to 15-30% in adults</td></tr><tr><td colspan="1" rowspan="1">Guinea worm disease</td><td colspan="1" rowspan="1">30 cases in 2017</td><td colspan="1" rowspan="1">Parasitic worm Dracunculus medinensis</td><td colspan="1" rowspan="1">Hygiene, water decontamination and health education</td><td colspan="1" rowspan="1">Not fatal but debilitating</td></tr><tr><td colspan="1" rowspan="1">Measles</td><td colspan="1" rowspan="1">173,457 reported cases to WHO in 2017</td><td colspan="1" rowspan="1">Measles morbillivirus</td><td colspan="1" rowspan="1">Vaccination</td><td colspan="1" rowspan="1">15%</td></tr><tr><td colspan="1" rowspan="1">Mumps</td><td colspan="1" rowspan="1">560,622 reported cases to WHO in 2017</td><td colspan="1" rowspan="1">Mumps orthorubulavirus</td><td colspan="1" rowspan="1">Vaccination</td><td colspan="1" rowspan="1">0.01% for mumps-caused encephalitis</td></tr><tr><td colspan="1" rowspan="1">Rubella</td><td colspan="1" rowspan="1">6,789 reported cases to WHO in 2017</td><td colspan="1" rowspan="1">Rubella virus</td><td colspan="1" rowspan="1">Vaccination</td><td colspan="1" rowspan="1">Not reported</td></tr><tr><td colspan="1" rowspan="1">Lymphatic filariasis</td><td colspan="1" rowspan="1">No estimate available. In 2014, 68 million people were infected and 790 million people where at risk of infection</td><td colspan="1" rowspan="1">Roundworms: W. bancrofti, B. malayi, B. timori</td><td colspan="1" rowspan="1">Preventive chemotherapy</td><td colspan="1" rowspan="1">Not fatal but highly debilitating</td></tr><tr><td colspan="1" rowspan="1">Cysticercosis</td><td colspan="1" rowspan="1">2.56–8.30 million cases estimated by the WHO</td><td colspan="1" rowspan="1">Tapeworms: T. solium, T. saginata, T. asiatica</td><td colspan="1" rowspan="1">Sanitation and health education. Vaccination of pigs</td><td colspan="1" rowspan="1">Varies between countries <1-30%</td></tr></tbody></table></div> --- # What makes a disease eradicable? --- Louis Pasteur once said that “_it is within the power of man to eradicate infection from the earth_”.{ref}Dubos, René Jules, and Jean Dubos. _The white plague: tuberculosis, man, and society_. p228. Rutgers University Press, 1987.{/ref} That power has so far eradicated two infectious diseases: smallpox and rinderpest. We are also getting closer to eradicating polio and Guinea worm disease. But can we eradicate _all_ infection from the world? For a disease eradication to be feasible and an option worth considering it needs to meet certain criteria. Below we highlight some of these criteria. Notably, these criteria are not set in stone. Eradication of diseases is an ongoing process, as we learn more about diseases and find new ways to treat them we may find that some of these criteria become obsolete or that disease that were once considered not to fulfill any of these requirements begin to tick all the boxes. ## Key requirements for disease eradication There are several required aspects of a disease that need to be fulfilled in order for a disease to be considered eradicable: * It needs to be an _infectious_ disease * We need to have ways to either prevent or treat the infection For a disease to be eradicable it needs to be a disease you can "catch" from other humans or animals, that is it has to be infectious. Non-infectious diseases, such as heart disease or cancer, cannot be eradicated.{ref}There are also certain metabolic diseases that could be cured in all humans provided sufficient nutrition. These are mainly vitamin or essential element deficiencies such as scurvy (lack of vitamin C) or ion deficiency disorders. However, while it is theoretically possible that no human in the world would have one of these metabolic diseases at some point in time, these diseases will never be eradicated because they will return if a person's nutritional status changes.{/ref} Without an effective treatment against a disease there is no possibility of eradicating it. The treatment can be either preventative, such as vaccination, or curative, such as drugs that can completely eliminate the pathogen that causes the disease from its host. ## Disease aspects that make eradication more likely In addition the the key requirements there are many other aspects of the disease that should be considered in the efforts to eradicate it: * How many pathogens cause the disease? * Does the disease-causing pathogen have one or more hosts? * Are there any identifiable symptoms of the disease? * Has regional disease elimination proven possible? * Is the perceived disease burden high and is financial and political support available? ### How many pathogens cause the disease? The more pathogens cause the disease the more difficult it will be to eradicate. If a disease is caused by a limited number and closely related pathogens then often same tools and approaches can be used in eradication efforts. For example, smallpox was caused by two types of variola virus and the same vaccine was used to prevent it. Contrast this to a disease such as [pneumonia](https://ourworldindata.org/pneumonia#), which is caused by [multiple pathogens](https://ourworldindata.org/pneumonia#what-pathogens-cause-pneumonia)- from bacteria to viruses - each of which requires a different treatment. ### Does the disease-causing pathogen have one or more hosts? Diseases with multiple hosts are difficult to target for eradication because it often means that the disease will have to be eradicated in all of them.{ref}Notably of course, rinderpest — one of the two eradicated diseases, had multiple animal hosts. {/ref} Pathogens, which cause diseases such as poliomielitis, measles, mumps, rubella, diphtheria and whooping cough, all have a single host — humans. But single-host pathogens are generally an exception rather than a rule. Case-in-point, the 2020 eradication target for Guinea worm disease had to be postponed, because we learned about high-rates of transmission of the Guinea worm between dog populations, which may be a source for new human infections.{ref}Eberhard, M. L., Ruiz-Tiben, E., Hopkins, D. R., Farrell, C., Toe, F., Weiss, A., … & Hance, Z. (2014). [The peculiar epidemiology of dracunculiasis in Chad.](http://www.ajtmh.org/content/journals/10.4269/ajtmh.13-0554)_The American journal of tropical medicine and hygiene_, _90_(1), 61-70.{/ref} ### Are there any identifiable symptoms of the disease? Some diseases are not easy to detect in the first place. 1.7 billion people live with latent tuberculosis infection today.{ref} World Health Organization. ["Global tuberculosis report 2019."](https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/329368/9789241565714-eng.pdf?ua=1)_Global tuberculosis report 2019_. 2019. {/ref} Because latent TB has no symptoms, identifying every single individual that has latent TB infection, unless we test every person in the world, is not possible. For other diseases even when symptoms may be visible or detectable, the stigma surrounding the disease may limit our ability to treat it. Hepatitis C is a disease that fits most eradication criteria, however, because the disease has a high prevalence among drug users, there is a stigma attached to being identified as an infected individual, making it difficult to identify all the cases. ### Has regional disease elimination proven possible? Disease eradication is usually achieved one step at a time. A proof-of-concept eradication in one region is a positive indicator that eradication at a larger scale is possible. Once the disease elimination has been achieved on a smaller scale, a greater support for the feasibility of elimination elsewhere can be gathered. ### Is the perceived disease burden high and is financial and political support available? The perceived burden of a disease, the estimated cost of eradication, and the political stability of affected countries are further factors that determine the eradicability of diseases. Polio is a good example here. Polio eradication efforts illustrate the powerful impact of both a unified international effort and a local political support. In 1988, the Global Polio Eradication Initiative was set-up to provide a large-scale continued support for the eradication of polio. Since then, the number of paralytic polio cases has been greatly reduced such that in 2018 it was considered endemic in only three countries: Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Nigeria. But polio also illustrates that positive developments might reverse. Nigeria’s case numbers surged from 202 in 2002 to 1,143 in 2006 because of rumors that polio vaccination was a covert affair to cause infertility and spread HIV in the local communities, which ultimately lead to an 11-month vaccination boycott.{ref} Larson, H., & Ghinai, I. (2011). [Lessons from polio eradication](http://www.globe-network.org/sites/default/files/documents/public/en/news-and-events/news/2011/lessons-from-polio-eradication.pdf). _Nature, 473_(7348), 446-447. {/ref} This example illustrates that eradication efforts have to span from international to national and community levels in order to be successful. --- # What are the benefits of eradicating diseases? --- The immediate benefit of eradicating a disease is obvious — _preventing suffering and saving people’s lives_. But eradicating a disease can also have significant economic benefits. Disease eradication takes years to achieve and requires a lot of financial investment: smallpox eradication had an [estimated cost of $300 million](https://ourworldindata.org/smallpox#costs-of-smallpox-and-its-eradication) over a 10-year period; polio eradication efforts to date amounted to $4.5 billion.{ref} Lahariya, C. (2007). [Global eradication of polio: the case for" finishing the job".](https://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/85/6/06-037457/en/)_Bulletin of the World Health Organization_, _85_, 487-492.{/ref} But, as the chart here illustrates, while the initial costs of disease eradication efforts are high, in the long-term these costs pay-off. Simply controlling a disease can be more expensive because of the continued burden a disease poses on a healthcare system and the lost productivity of a sick population. How much we should spend on eradicating a disease? There will always be other good causes we can spend money on. These include non-health causes, health causes with greater burden, eradication of different diseases, and even research into more cost effective treatments instead of eradication. The scenario or intervention which brings the highest benefit needs to be assessed for each disease separately. As a classical paper by Walter R. Dowdle’s classical paper on disease eradication states: _“Elimination and eradication are the ultimate goals of public health. The only question is whether these goals are to be achieved in the present or [by] some future generation"._{ref}Dowdle, WR. (1999) [The principles of disease elimination and eradication.](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2305684/)_Bulletin of the World Health Organization_. 1998;76(Suppl 2):22-25.{/ref} ##### Eradicating vs controlling a disease: schematic comparison of the costs <Image filename="Costs-of-controlling-vs-eradicating-a-disease-1.png" alt=""/> --- # Successfully eradicated diseases --- The world has successfuly eradicated two diseases: * Smallpox was declared eradicated in 1980 * Rinderpest was declared eradicated in 2011 ## Smallpox: 200 years between vaccine and the disease eradication The last recorded case of smallpox occurred in 1977 in Somalia. The disease was officially declared eradicated by the World Health Organization in 1980. From the invention of vaccine against smallpox by Edward Jenner in 1796, it took almost two centuries to eradicate the disease. It was only with the establishment of the World Health Organization in the aftermath of World War II that international quality standards for the production of smallpox vaccines were introduced and the fight against smallpox moved from national to an international agenda. In 1966, the WHO launched the Intensified Smallpox Eradication Program. By then smallpox cases and deaths in Europe and North America had been driven down substantially but large parts of Asia and Africa still struggled under smallpox’s disease burden. Shown in the chart are the number of reported smallpox cases from 1920 until the last case in 1977. Even though smallpox had high visibility and should therefore have been relatively easy to document, the lack of an international organization dedicated to global health means the number of cases was likely much greater. The world map illustrates the year the variola virus (the virus that caused smallpox) was no longer endemic in a country.{ref}A disease is no longer endemic when uninterrupted circulation is not happening anymore. This means that there could have been cases after a country had eliminated smallpox but these were imported from an endemic country.{/ref} <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/decade-in-which-smallpox-ceased-to-be-endemic-by-country"/> ### More about smallpox You can find out more about the disease and its history in our much more comprehensive Smallpox entry. https://owid.cloud/smallpox ## Rinderpest: eradication began before vaccine against the disease was available Rinderpest is the only animal disease that has been eradicated so far. Rinderpest outbreaks in cattles used to cause devastating losses for animal farmers. The eradication efforts began in the 1920s before the vaccine against the rinderpest virus was even available. Measures such as animal quarantine and slaughter were used to contain the disease. The map here shows the last year in which cases of rinderpest were reported in a country. In 1960 an English veterinary scientist Walter Plowright has developed a vaccine against rinderpest, which finally led to its eradication. You can read more about the history of rinderpest eradication in our post [here](https://ourworldindata.org/how-rinderpest-was-eradicated). <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/year-of-the-last-reported-rinderpest-case"/> ### How was rinderpest eradicated? You can read more about the history of rinderpest eradication in our post. https://owid.cloud/how-rinderpest-was-eradicated --- # Diseases we could eradicate --- ## Polio Polio, short for poliomyelitis, is a disease that is caused by the poliovirus. Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin invented two polio [vaccines](https://owid.cloud/vaccination) in 1953 and 1961, respectively, which eliminated polio from the United States and Canada in 1979 and rapidly lead to a large reduction of the disease in the Western Europe. While Salk's vaccine required injection with a needle, Sabin's vaccine is oral and can be swallowed. The latter feature made its distribution throughout the developing world possible, as fewer trained healthcare staff were required for its administration. The chart here highlights the global decline of the _estimated_ number of paralytic polio cases from 1980 onwards. In the peak year 1981, the number of paralytic polio cases are estimated to have exceeded 450,000 but were reduced to 43 cases in 2016 - a more than 100,000-fold reduction of paralytic polio cases. As of 2019, wild polio virus is endemic in only three countries: Afghanistan, Nigeria, and Pakistan. In 2018, 9 countries have reported samples (human or environmental) positive for vaccine-derived poliovirus. <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-estimated-paralytic-polio-cases-by-world-region"/> ### Eradicating polio We provide detailed information on polio and its history in our comprehensive Polio entry. https://owid.cloud/polio ## Guinea worm disease (dracunculiasis) Guinea worm disease is caused by _Dracunculus medinensis_ worm. There is no vaccine against the disease, however, it can be successfully eliminated by identification and treatment of all current cases of the disease. In 2021, 15 cases of Guinea worm were reported, which were in Chad (8 cases), South Sudan (4 cases), Mali (2 cases), and Ethiopia (1 case). ### Guinea worm is on the path of being eradicated You can read more about the disease and its eradication here. https://owid.cloud/guinea-worm-is-on-the-path-of-being-eradicated <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-reported-guinea-worm-dracunculiasis-cases?time=2021"/> ## Lymphatic filariasis Lymphatic filariasis is a disease caused by roundworms. It is not a fatal but highly debilitating disease. It causes the swelling of lymph nodes, which in turn can cause painful swelling of arms, legs and other parts of the body. In 2017 more than 62 million people lived with lymphatic filariasis. Majority of cases occur in Sub-Saharan Africa, South-Asia and Indonesia. While the lymphatic filariasis-causing roundworms are transmitted by mosquitoes, the transmission can be effectively stopped by preventive chemotherapy. WHO and its partners have been working on mass drug administration campaigns (MDAs) to stop the transmission of the diseases. Rather than targeting just the infected individuals, MDAs target groups of people living in endemic areas.{ref}[Global programme to eliminate lymphatic filariasis: progress report, 2017](http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/275719/WER9344.pdf?ua=1){/ref}Since 2000 **7.7 **billion treatments preventive chemotherapy have been administered via MDA campaigns. <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/prevalence-of-lymphatic-filariasis"/> ## Measles, mumps and rubella Measles, mumps and rubella are three viral diseases that can be prevented by child vaccination. The only known hosts of these viruses are humans, which makes it a good target for eradication. One of the major obstacles for eradicating these diseases is the misperception of the seriousness of the disease in the public, which leads to [insufficient vaccination rates](https://ourworldindata.org/vaccination#measles-global-vaccination-coverage-and-decline-of-measles). Insufficient information on the disease prevalence and lacking means in developing countries are also important factors. Combined, the World Health Organisation has registered more than 741,000 cases of these three diseases in 2017. This number is likely to be an underestimate since not all cases are reported to the WHO. Measles is a highly contagious killer of young children globally, despite a safe and effective vaccine being available. In 2017 110,000 people died because of measles, the majority of whom were children younger than 5.{ref} Figures are updated by the WHO here: [http://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/measles](http://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/measles) {/ref} The visualization here shows, the increase of the global vaccination coverage of one-year-olds and the simultaneous decline of reported cases of measles; from close to 1,000 cases per million people globally to 28 cases per million. This represents a 33-fold reduction. Mumps infection occurs via direct human contact or by airborne droplets. It causes painful swelling at the side of the face under the ears (the parotid glands), fever, headache and muscle aches. It can cause sterility in teenagers and adults. Rubella is usually mild in children but up to 90% of infections during pregnancy can result in complications and in approximately 20% of those cases result in fetal death. <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/measles-vaccine-coverage-worldwide-vs-measles-cases-worldwide"/> ## Cysticercosis Cysticercosis is a parasitic tissue infection of tissues (including brain and muscle tissue) caused by larval cysts of the pork tapeworm (Taenia solium). In low income countries these infections are a major cause of adult onset seizures. More information on the disease can be found on the website of the CDC [here](https://www.cdc.gov/parasites/cysticercosis/index.html). The _International Task Force for Disease Eradication_ has put cysticercosis on a list of eradicable diseases back in 1993. However, the disease still affects millions of people globally. WHO estimates that 2.56–8.30 million people had neurocysticercosis in 2015.{ref}This includes both symptomatic and asymptomatic cases and is estimated based on data available for epilepsy. 80% of people with epilepsy live in areas affected by cysticercosis and of those 30% are thought to be caused by the tapeworm infection [https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/taeniasis-cysticercosis](https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/taeniasis-cysticercosis){/ref} The disease is caused by tapeworms, which can affect the nervous system and cause severe epileptic seizures. The map here shows the estimated rate of prevalence of cysticercosis. As is shown, the disease is most prevalent in Mexico and countries in South America, and Sub-Saharan and Southern Africa. Eradication of cysticercosis in humans relies on the ability to break the tapeworm transmission cycle between humans and pigs. This can effectively be done through sanitary measures and proper inspection and cooking of pork. Furthermore, vaccines against the tapeworm are now available for the use in pigs, and oxfendazole drug can be used to remove the tapeworm from animals.{ref}Maurice, J. (2014). [Of pigs and people—WHO prepares to battle cysticercosis](https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(14)61353-2/fulltext). _The Lancet_, _384_(9943), 571-572.{/ref} <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/prevalence-cysticercosis"/> --- # Diseases that could be eliminated in some parts of the world --- The process of disease eradication is always ongoing. As new treatments become available and as we start to better understand the disease ecology new avenues open for the eradication of diseases. There is no one defined path for disease eradication. Eradication is usually the final goal, and control of disease spread or local disease elimination is usually a more near-future goal for most diseases. On the list of diseases that could potentially be eliminated in parts of the world are yaws, malaria, and trachoma. ## Yaws Yaws is a disease caused by the bacterium _Treponema pallidum_. The disease results in painful skin lesions, which can extend to damage in bones and cartilage. The disease is rarely fatal, however highly debilitating. Humans are the only known hosts for the bacterium that causes yaws and infections can be successfully treated by a single dose of antibiotic azithromycin. These factors make the disease a good target for eradication. The exact burden of the disease is not known, primarily because of the lack of a global monitoring system for the disease. The world map visualizes the data that is available – a country’s status of endemicity in 2021. Fifteen countries are known to be endemic for the disease. Many other countries, which were previously endemic, don't monitor the disease and their status is therefore unknown, these countries are shown in yellow on the map. Countries where yaws is currently endemic are depicted in orange on the map. Thanks to determined mass treatment and monitoring, India has eliminated yaws. India is colored green in the map. On Our World in Data Sophie Ochmann and Hannah Behrens discuss the prospects for eradicating yaws in _[Can the world eradicate another disease?](https://ourworldindata.org/can-the-world-eradicate-another-disease)_ <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/status-of-yaws-endemicity"/> ## Trachoma Trachoma is a disease caused by the bacterium _Chlamydia trachomatis_. The disease affects eyes and causes blindness. The map shows the global prevalence of trachoma. Limited information is available on the surveillance of the disease. The WHO states that 1.9 million people live with trachoma-caused blindness, and 142 million people are at risk of infection.{ref}See the WHO information on trachoma here: [https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/trachoma#](https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/trachoma#){/ref} Trachoma can be prevented by sanitary measures such as [access to clean water](https://ourworldindata.org/water-access) and facial cleanliness. Mass administration of antibiotics can successfully stop disease transmission and surgery can reverse blindness caused by the disease. <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/trachoma-prevalence-age-standardized-ihme"/> ## Onchocerciasis Onchocerciasis, also called river blindness, is an eye infection caused by a parasitic worm. The disease leads to blindness, skin damage and sometimes epilepsy. The Global Burden of Disease study has estimated that the prevalence of river blindness was 20.9 million in 2017; 1.2 million of these cases resulted in blindness, 14.7 related in skin lesions and 5 million were asymptomatic.{ref}James, S. L., Abate, D., Abate, K. H., Abay, S. M., Abbafati, C., Abbasi, N., ... & Abdollahpour, I. (2018). [Global, regional, and national incidence, prevalence, and years lived with disability for 354 diseases and injuries for 195 countries and territories, 1990–2017: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017](https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(18)32279-7/fulltext). _The Lancet_, _392_(10159), 1789-1858.{/ref} Prevalence of onchocerciasis is shown in the map. Recent evidence suggests that mass drug administration with coverage of at least 80% can stop disease transmission.{ref}Hill, E., Hall, J., Letourneau, I. D., Donkers, K., Shirude, S., Pigott, D. M., ... & Cromwell, E. A. (2019). [A database of geopositioned onchocerciasis prevalence data.](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41597-019-0079-5)_Scientific data_, _6_(1), 67.{/ref} <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/prevalence-of-onchocerciasis"/> ## Malaria The Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) provides estimates of malaria deaths from the year 1990 onwards. Over this period we see a clear rise-peak-fall trend, increasing from around 670,000 deaths in 1990; peaking at around 930,000 in 2004; and then declining (although at varying rates) to around 620,000 in 2017. The Bill & Melinda Gates foundation proposed a plan to end malaria by 2040.{ref}[http://endmalaria2040.org/](http://endmalaria2040.org/){/ref} The eradication plan largely relies on the development of new ways to prevent and treat the disease, such as effective vaccines, longer-lasting bed-nets and parasite resistance management programs.{ref}Feachem, R. G., Chen, I., Akbari, O., Bertozzi-Villa, A., Bhatt, S., Binka, F., ... & Eapen, A. (2019). [Malaria eradication within a generation: ambitious, achievable, and necessary. ](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673619311390)_The Lancet_, _394_(10203), 1056-1112.{/ref} It is estimated that an increase in funding (at least a doubling of funding between 2015 and 2025 to annual costs of $6 billion) is also required. ### More about malaria You can read more about malaria, its history and the efforts to reduce its burden in our entry on the topic. https://owid.cloud/malaria <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/malaria-deaths-by-region"/> --- # Useful references --- ### Hopkins (2013) – Disease Eradication * **Description:** A good summary of the methods available to eradicate Guinea worm disease, polio, malaria, lymphatic filariasis and river blindness. Figure 1 of the paper is especially helpful as an illustrated summary. * **Date of publication:** 3 January 2013 * **Available at:**[http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMra1200391](http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMra1200391) ### Online publication _The History of Vaccines_ * **Description:** This web publication is published by _The College of Physicians of Philadelphia_ and describes disease eradication in general, but also discusses specific vaccine-preventable diseases (found in the table of content on the left) in an accessible and interactive way. * **Date of publication:** Last updated 25 January 2018 * **Available at:**[https://www.historyofvaccines.org/content/articles/disease-eradication](https://www.historyofvaccines.org/content/articles/disease-eradication) ### Hemingway (2017) – The way forward for vector control * **Description:** This article discusses how vector-borne diseases, specifically with insects like malaria, can be controlled, eliminated or even eradicated. * **Date of publication:** 24 November 2017 * **Available at:**[http://science.sciencemag.org/content/358/6366/998](http://science.sciencemag.org/content/358/6366/998) --- # Data sources --- We provide all data sources for this entry on a separate [page](https://ourworldindata.org/sources-for-eradication-of-diseases). <AllCharts heading="Interactive charts on eradication of diseases"/> | { "id": 4342, "date": "2014-06-03T22:59:55", "guid": { "rendered": "http://ourworldindata.org/?page_id=4342" }, "link": "https://owid.cloud/eradication-of-diseases", "meta": { "owid_publication_context_meta_field": [], "owid_key_performance_indicators_meta_field": { "raw": "Humanity has already eradicated one severe disease.", "rendered": "<p>Humanity has already eradicated one severe disease.</p>\n" } }, "slug": "eradication-of-diseases", "tags": [], "type": "page", "title": { "rendered": "Eradication of Diseases" }, "_links": { "self": [ { "href": "https://owid.cloud/wp-json/wp/v2/pages/4342" } ], "about": [ { "href": "https://owid.cloud/wp-json/wp/v2/types/page" } ], "author": [ { "href": "https://owid.cloud/wp-json/wp/v2/users/2", "embeddable": true } ], "curies": [ { "href": "https://api.w.org/{rel}", "name": "wp", "templated": true } ], "replies": [ { "href": "https://owid.cloud/wp-json/wp/v2/comments?post=4342", "embeddable": true } ], "wp:term": [ { "href": "https://owid.cloud/wp-json/wp/v2/categories?post=4342", "taxonomy": "category", "embeddable": true }, { "href": "https://owid.cloud/wp-json/wp/v2/tags?post=4342", "taxonomy": "post_tag", "embeddable": true } ], "collection": [ { "href": "https://owid.cloud/wp-json/wp/v2/pages" } ], "wp:attachment": [ { "href": "https://owid.cloud/wp-json/wp/v2/media?parent=4342" } ], "version-history": [ { "href": "https://owid.cloud/wp-json/wp/v2/pages/4342/revisions", "count": 30 } ], "wp:featuredmedia": [ { "href": "https://owid.cloud/wp-json/wp/v2/media/21341", "embeddable": true } ], "predecessor-version": [ { "id": 57499, "href": "https://owid.cloud/wp-json/wp/v2/pages/4342/revisions/57499" } ] }, "author": 2, "parent": 0, "status": "publish", "content": { "rendered": "\n<div class=\"blog-info\">\n<p>This article was first published in June 2014; last revised in October 2018.</p>\n</div>\n\n\n\t<div class=\"wp-block-owid-summary\">\n\t\t<h2>Summary</h2>\n\t\t\n\n<p>The ultimate goal in the fight against diseases is their eradication. In theory, many diseases could be eradicated, in practice, only a handful of diseases meet the criteria that make them eradicable with current knowledge, institutions, and technology. In this entry we look at the progress the world has made in eradicating diseases, what makes a disease eradicable and which diseases we can hope to eradicate in the future.</p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li><a href=\"#disease-eradication-is-an-ongoing-process\">Diseases that are considered eradicable today are: polio, Guinea worm disease, lymphatic filariasis, cysticercosis, measles, mumps and rubella</a></li><li><a href=\"#what-makes-a-disease-eradicable\">Eradicable diseases usually need to meet the following criteria: it’s an infectious disease, humans are the major host of for the disease, effective vaccines or treatments are available for the disease, and there is political and financial support for the eradication efforts</a></li><li><a href=\"#successfully-eradicated-diseases\">The world has eradicated two diseases: Smallpox and Rinderpest</a></li><li><a href=\"#diseases-that-could-be-eliminated-in-some-parts-of-the-world\">Efforts to eradicate or eliminate additional diseases from parts of the world such as malaria, trachoma, river blindness and yaws are underway</a></li></ul>\n\n\n\n<p></p>\n\n\n\t</div>\n\n\n<p><strong>Related entries:</strong></p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li><a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/smallpox\">Smallpox</a> \u2013 How was smallpox eradicated?</li><li><a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/polio\">Polio</a> \u2013 Just a generation ago polio paralyzed hundreds of thousands of children every year. Now the world can possibly eradicate it.</li><li><a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/vaccination\">Vaccination</a> \u2013 Vaccines protect from diseases and are key to many eradication efforts.</li></ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Related writing:</strong></p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li><a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/can-the-world-eradicate-another-disease\">Can the world eradicate another disease?</a></li><li><a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/how-rinderpest-was-eradicated\">Rinderpest was eradicated</a></li></ul>\n\n\n\n<h3>\u201cEradication\u201d versus \u201cElimination\u201d</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>The e<em>radication</em> of a disease is permanent and global, while the <em>elimination</em> of a disease is an achievement restricted to a specific geographic area.</p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li><em>Eradication </em>of a disease refers to a deliberate effort that leads to the permanent reduction to zero of the worldwide incidence of infection caused by a specific agent.{ref}Dowdle, WR. (1999) The principles of disease elimination and eradication. <em>Bulletin of the World Health Organization</em>. 1998;76 (Suppl 2):22-25. Online <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2305684/\" target=\"_blank\">here</a>.{/ref}</li></ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Eradication means that intervention measures are no longer required, the agent, which previously caused the disease is no longer present. </p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li><em>Elimination</em> of a disease refers to the deliberate effort that leads to the reduction to zero of the incidence of infection caused by a specific agent in a defined geographic area. A disease can be eliminated from a specific region without being eradicated globally. Actions to prevent the disease from transmitting or re-emerging are still required once a disease is eliminated.{ref}Dowdle, WR. (1999) The principles of disease elimination and eradication. <em>Bulletin of the World Health Organization</em>. 1998;76 (Suppl 2):22-25. Online <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2305684/\" target=\"_blank\">here</a>.{/ref}</li></ul>\n\n\n\n<h2>Disease eradication is an ongoing process</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>So far, the world has eradicated two diseases \u2014 smallpox and rinderpest. How many other diseases could we eradicate?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>In this entry we are primarily guided by the list of eradicable diseases provided by The International Task Force for Disease Eradication (ITFDE). ITFDE was formed in 1988 at the The Carter Center; it is supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and advises bodies such as the World Health Organisation on various aspects of disease eradication.{ref}<a href=\"https://www.cartercenter.org/health/itfde/index.html\">https://www.cartercenter.org/health/itfde/index.html</a>{/ref} </p>\n\n\n\n<p>The table here shows the two diseases which the world has eradicated and the seven diseases that ITFDE has listed as potentially eradicable.{ref}<a href=\"https://www.cartercenter.org/resources/pdfs/news/health_publications/itfde/updated_disease_candidate_table.pdf\">Recommendations of the International Task Force for Disease Eradication (2008). </a>{/ref} These diseases are \u2014 polio, Guinea worm disease, lymphatic filariasis, cysticercosis, measles, mumps and rubella. These diseases are considered eradicable diseases because they satisfy the criteria for disease eradication discussed below in this entry. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>Which diseases can be eradicated and when it can be done is a topic of an ongoing discussion. The following examples illustrate the point:</p>\n\n\n\n<p>While ITFDE has placed seven diseases on its eradicable diseases list, the WHO currently suggests that polio and Guinea worm disease are eradicable while lymphatic filariasis, cysticercosis, measles, mumps and rubella could be eliminated from some parts of the world. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>Even for diseases where possibility of eradication has been agreed upon, the date when it will happen remains a moving target. The timeline for Guinea worm disease eradication was first set for 1991, then moved to 2009, then to 2015, then to 2020 and is currently set for 2030. {ref}The, Lancet.<a href=\"https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(19)30738-X/fulltext\"> “Guinea worm disease eradication: a moving target.”</a> <em>Lancet (London, England)</em> 393.10178 (2019): 1261.{/ref} </p>\n\n\n\n<p>Global Malaria Eradication Program was established in 1955 to eradicate malaria, but it was abandoned in 1969. Today, however, a renewed focus on malaria eradication has emerged, with the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation proposing a plan to end malaria by 2040.{ref}<a href=\"http://endmalaria2040.org/\">http://endmalaria2040.org/</a>{/ref} </p>\n\n\n\n<p>All these examples illustrate that disease eradication is an ongoing process. As science discovers new facts about diseases and researchers invent new ways to tackle them the world has to change its perspective on which goals are feasible now and which ones are not yet. </p>\n\n\n\n<h6>Infectious diseases that have been eradicated and could be eradicated in the future{ref}Polio cases in 2017 and case-fatality estimates are based on CDC data – found <a href=\"http:// https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/68/wr/mm6820a3.htm#T2_down\">here</a> and <a href=\"http:// https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/polio.html\">here</a>. </h6>\n\n\n\n<p>Guinea worm disease cases since 1989 are reported by the Carter Foundation – found <a href=\"https://www.cartercenter.org/resources/pdfs/news/health_publications/guinea_worm/guinea-worm-cases-by-year-from-1989.pdf\">here</a>.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Measles, mumps and rubella reported cases for 2017 are taken from the WHO – found <a href=\"http://apps.who.int/immunization_monitoring/globalsummary/timeseries/tsincidencemeasles.html\">here</a>.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Measles case-fatality estimate is from CDC – found <a href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/downloads/meas.pdf\">here</a>.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mumps case-fatality estimate is from WHO – found <a href=\"https://www.who.int/immunization/monitoring_surveillance/burden/vpd/surveillance_type/passive/mumps_standards/en/\">here</a>.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Cysticercosis case estimate is from WHO – found here. And case-fatality from papers published <a href=\"http://repositorio.ufc.br/bitstream/riufc/15032/1/2016_art_frmmelo.pdf \">here</a> and <a href=\"http:// https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2725874/\">here</a>.{/ref}</p>\n\n\n\n<table id=\"tablepress-119\" class=\"tablepress tablepress-id-119\">\n<thead>\n<tr class=\"row-1 odd\">\n\t<th class=\"column-1\">Disease</th><th class=\"column-2\">Burden of disease</th><th class=\"column-3\">Cause</th><th class=\"column-4\">Ways to eradicate</th><th class=\"column-5\">Fatality</th>\n</tr>\n</thead>\n<tbody class=\"row-hover\">\n<tr class=\"row-2 even\">\n\t<td class=\"column-1\">Smallpox</td><td class=\"column-2\">Declared eradicated in 1980</td><td class=\"column-3\">Variola virus</td><td class=\"column-4\">Eradicated using vaccination</td><td class=\"column-5\">30%</td>\n</tr>\n<tr class=\"row-3 odd\">\n\t<td class=\"column-1\">Rinderpest</td><td class=\"column-2\">Declared eradicated in 2011</td><td class=\"column-3\">Rinderpest virus</td><td class=\"column-4\">Sanitary measures and vaccination</td><td class=\"column-5\">100%</td>\n</tr>\n<tr class=\"row-4 even\">\n\t<td class=\"column-1\">Poliomielitis</td><td class=\"column-2\">116 cases in 2017</td><td class=\"column-3\">Poliovirus</td><td class=\"column-4\">Vaccination</td><td class=\"column-5\">For paralytic polio 2-5% in children and increases to 15-30% in adults</td>\n</tr>\n<tr class=\"row-5 odd\">\n\t<td class=\"column-1\">Guinea worm disease</td><td class=\"column-2\">30 cases in 2017</td><td class=\"column-3\">Parasitic worm Dracunculus medinensis</td><td class=\"column-4\">Hygiene, water decontamination and health education</td><td class=\"column-5\">Not fatal but debilitating</td>\n</tr>\n<tr class=\"row-6 even\">\n\t<td class=\"column-1\">Measles</td><td class=\"column-2\">173,457 reported cases to WHO in 2017</td><td class=\"column-3\">Measles morbillivirus</td><td class=\"column-4\">Vaccination</td><td class=\"column-5\">15%</td>\n</tr>\n<tr class=\"row-7 odd\">\n\t<td class=\"column-1\">Mumps</td><td class=\"column-2\">560,622 reported cases to WHO in 2017</td><td class=\"column-3\">Mumps orthorubulavirus</td><td class=\"column-4\">Vaccination</td><td class=\"column-5\">0.01% for mumps-caused encephalitis</td>\n</tr>\n<tr class=\"row-8 even\">\n\t<td class=\"column-1\">Rubella</td><td class=\"column-2\">6,789 reported cases to WHO in 2017</td><td class=\"column-3\">Rubella virus</td><td class=\"column-4\">Vaccination</td><td class=\"column-5\">Not reported</td>\n</tr>\n<tr class=\"row-9 odd\">\n\t<td class=\"column-1\">Lymphatic filariasis</td><td class=\"column-2\">No estimate available. In 2014, 68 million people were infected and 790 million people where at risk of infection</td><td class=\"column-3\">Roundworms: <br />\nW. bancrofti, <br />\nB. malayi, <br />\nB. timori</td><td class=\"column-4\">Preventive chemotherapy</td><td class=\"column-5\">Not fatal but highly debilitating</td>\n</tr>\n<tr class=\"row-10 even\">\n\t<td class=\"column-1\">Cysticercosis</td><td class=\"column-2\">2.56\u20138.30 million cases estimated by the WHO</td><td class=\"column-3\">Tapeworms: <br />\nT. solium, <br />\nT. saginata, <br />\nT. asiatica</td><td class=\"column-4\">Sanitation and health education. Vaccination of pigs</td><td class=\"column-5\">Varies between countries <1-30%</td>\n</tr>\n</tbody>\n</table>\n\n\n\n\n<h2>What makes a disease eradicable?</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Louis Pasteur once said that \u201c<em>it is within the power of man to eradicate infection from the earth</em>\u201d.{ref}Dubos, Ren\u00e9 Jules, and Jean Dubos. <em>The white plague: tuberculosis, man, and society</em>. p228. Rutgers University Press, 1987.{/ref} That power has so far eradicated two infectious diseases: smallpox and rinderpest. We are also getting closer to eradicating polio and Guinea worm disease. But can we eradicate <em>all</em> infection from the world?<br></p>\n\n\n\n<p>For a disease eradication to be feasible and an option worth considering it needs to meet certain criteria. Below we highlight some of these criteria. Notably, these criteria are not set in stone. Eradication of diseases is an ongoing process, as we learn more about diseases and find new ways to treat them we may find that some of these criteria become obsolete or that disease that were once considered not to fulfill any of these requirements begin to tick all the boxes.<br></p>\n\n\n\n<h3>Key requirements for disease eradication</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>There are several required aspects of a disease that need to be fulfilled in order for a disease to be considered eradicable:</p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>It needs to be an <em>infectious</em> disease</li><li>We need to have ways to either prevent or treat the infection</li></ul>\n\n\n\n<p>For a disease to be eradicable it needs to be a disease you can “catch” from other humans or animals, that is it has to be infectious. Non-infectious diseases, such as heart disease or cancer, cannot be eradicated.{ref}There are also certain metabolic diseases that could be cured in all humans provided sufficient nutrition. These are mainly vitamin or essential element deficiencies such as scurvy (lack of vitamin C) or ion deficiency disorders. However, while it is theoretically possible that no human in the world would have one of these metabolic diseases at some point in time, these diseases will never be eradicated because they will return if a person’s nutritional status changes.{/ref}</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Without an effective treatment against a disease there is no possibility of eradicating it. The treatment can be either preventative, such as vaccination, or curative, such as drugs that can completely eliminate the pathogen that causes the disease from its host. </p>\n\n\n\n<h3>Disease aspects that make eradication more likely</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>In addition the the key requirements there are many other aspects of the disease that should be considered in the efforts to eradicate it:</p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>How many pathogens cause the disease?</li><li>Does the disease-causing pathogen have one or more hosts?</li><li>Are there any identifiable symptoms of the disease?</li><li>Has regional disease elimination proven possible? </li><li>Is the perceived disease burden high and is financial and political support available?</li></ul>\n\n\n\n<h4>How many pathogens cause the disease?</h4>\n\n\n\n<p>The more pathogens cause the disease the more difficult it will be to eradicate. If a disease is caused by a limited number and closely related pathogens then often same tools and approaches can be used in eradication efforts. For example, smallpox was caused by two types of variola virus and the same vaccine was used to prevent it. Contrast this to a disease such as <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/pneumonia#\">pneumonia</a>, which is caused by <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/pneumonia#what-pathogens-cause-pneumonia\">multiple pathogens</a>– from bacteria to viruses – each of which requires a different treatment. </p>\n\n\n\n<h4>Does the disease-causing pathogen have one or more hosts?</h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Diseases with multiple hosts are difficult to target for eradication because it often means that the disease will have to be eradicated in all of them.{ref}Notably of course, rinderpest \u2014 one of the two eradicated diseases, had multiple animal hosts. <br>{/ref} Pathogens, which cause diseases such as poliomielitis, measles, mumps, rubella, diphtheria and whooping cough, all have a single host \u2014 humans. But single-host pathogens are generally an exception rather than a rule. Case-in-point, the 2020 eradication target for Guinea worm disease had to be postponed, because we learned about high-rates of transmission of the Guinea worm between dog populations, which may be a source for new human infections.{ref}Eberhard, M. L., Ruiz-Tiben, E., Hopkins, D. R., Farrell, C., Toe, F., Weiss, A., \u2026 & Hance, Z. (2014). <a href=\"http://www.ajtmh.org/content/journals/10.4269/ajtmh.13-0554\">The peculiar epidemiology of dracunculiasis in Chad.</a><em>The American journal of tropical medicine and hygiene</em>, <em>90</em>(1), 61-70.{/ref}</p>\n\n\n\n<h4>Are there any identifiable symptoms of the disease?</h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Some diseases are not easy to detect in the first place. 1.7 billion people live with latent tuberculosis infection today.{ref} World Health Organization. <a href=\"https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/329368/9789241565714-eng.pdf?ua=1\">“Global tuberculosis report 2019.”</a> <em>Global tuberculosis report 2019</em>. 2019.<br>{/ref} Because latent TB has no symptoms, identifying every single individual that has latent TB infection, unless we test every person in the world, is not possible. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>For other diseases even when symptoms may be visible or detectable, the stigma surrounding the disease may limit our ability to treat it. Hepatitis C is a disease that fits most eradication criteria, however, because the disease has a high prevalence among drug users, there is a stigma attached to being identified as an infected individual, making it difficult to identify all the cases. </p>\n\n\n\n<h4>Has regional disease elimination proven possible?</h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Disease eradication is usually achieved one step at a time. A proof-of-concept eradication in one region is a positive indicator that eradication at a larger scale is possible. Once the disease elimination has been achieved on a smaller scale, a greater support for the feasibility of elimination elsewhere can be gathered. </p>\n\n\n\n<h4>Is the perceived disease burden high and is financial and political support available?</h4>\n\n\n\n<p>The perceived burden of a disease, the estimated cost of eradication, and the political stability of affected countries are further factors that determine the eradicability of diseases. Polio is a good example here. Polio eradication efforts illustrate the powerful impact of both a unified international effort and a local political support. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>In 1988, the Global Polio Eradication Initiative was set-up to provide a large-scale continued support for the eradication of polio. Since then, the number of paralytic polio cases has been greatly reduced such that in 2018 it was considered endemic in only three countries: Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Nigeria.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But polio also illustrates that positive developments might reverse. Nigeria\u2019s case numbers surged from 202 in 2002 to 1,143 in 2006 because of rumors that polio vaccination was a covert affair to cause infertility and spread HIV in the local communities, which ultimately lead to an 11-month vaccination boycott.{ref} Larson, H., & Ghinai, I. (2011). <a href=\"http://www.globe-network.org/sites/default/files/documents/public/en/news-and-events/news/2011/lessons-from-polio-eradication.pdf\">Lessons from polio eradication</a>. <em>Nature, 473</em>(7348), 446-447. <br>{/ref} This example illustrates that eradication efforts have to span from international to national and community levels in order to be successful. </p>\n\n\n\n<h2>What are the benefits of eradicating diseases?</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The immediate benefit of eradicating a disease is obvious \u2014 <em>preventing suffering and saving people\u2019s lives</em>.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But eradicating a disease can also have significant economic benefits. Disease eradication takes years to achieve and requires a lot of financial investment: smallpox eradication had an <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/smallpox#costs-of-smallpox-and-its-eradication\">estimated cost of $300 million</a> over a 10-year period; polio eradication efforts to date amounted to $4.5 billion.{ref} Lahariya, C. (2007). <a href=\"https://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/85/6/06-037457/en/\">Global eradication of polio: the case for” finishing the job”.</a> <em>Bulletin of the World Health Organization</em>, <em>85</em>, 487-492.{/ref} But, as the chart here illustrates, while the initial costs of disease eradication efforts are high, in the long-term these costs pay-off. Simply controlling a disease can be more expensive because of the continued burden a disease poses on a healthcare system and the lost productivity of a sick population. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>How much we should spend on eradicating a disease? There will always be other good causes we can spend money on. These include non-health causes, health causes with greater burden, eradication of different diseases, and even research into more cost effective treatments instead of eradication. The scenario or intervention which brings the highest benefit needs to be assessed for each disease separately. </p>\n\n\n\n<p><br>As a classical paper by Walter R. Dowdle\u2019s classical paper on disease eradication states: <em>\u201cElimination and eradication are the ultimate goals of public health. The only question is whether these goals are to be achieved in the present or [by] some future generation”.</em>{ref}Dowdle, WR. (1999) <a href=\"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2305684/\">The principles of disease elimination and eradication.</a> <em>Bulletin of the World Health Organization</em>. 1998;76(Suppl 2):22-25.{/ref}</p>\n\n\n\n<h6>Eradicating vs controlling a disease: schematic comparison of the costs</h6>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter\"><a href=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2018/04/Costs-of-controlling-vs-eradicating-a-disease-1.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"750\" height=\"446\" src=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2018/04/Costs-of-controlling-vs-eradicating-a-disease-1-750x446.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-18598\" srcset=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2018/04/Costs-of-controlling-vs-eradicating-a-disease-1-750x446.png 750w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2018/04/Costs-of-controlling-vs-eradicating-a-disease-1-150x89.png 150w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2018/04/Costs-of-controlling-vs-eradicating-a-disease-1-400x238.png 400w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2018/04/Costs-of-controlling-vs-eradicating-a-disease-1-768x456.png 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px\" /></a></figure></div>\n\n\n\n<h2>Successfully eradicated diseases</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The world has successfuly eradicated two diseases:</p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>Smallpox was declared eradicated in 1980</li><li>Rinderpest was declared eradicated in 2011 </li></ul>\n\n\n\n<h3>Smallpox: 200 years between vaccine and the disease eradication</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>The last recorded case of smallpox occurred in 1977 in Somalia. The disease was officially declared eradicated by the World Health Organization in 1980.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>From the invention of vaccine against smallpox by Edward Jenner in 1796, it took almost two centuries to eradicate the disease. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>It was only with the establishment of the World Health Organization in the aftermath of World War II that international quality standards for the production of smallpox vaccines were introduced and the fight against smallpox moved from national to an international agenda. In 1966, the WHO launched the Intensified Smallpox Eradication Program. By then smallpox cases and deaths in Europe and North America had been driven down substantially but large parts of Asia and Africa still struggled under smallpox\u2019s disease burden.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Shown in the chart are the number of reported smallpox cases from 1920 until the last case in 1977. Even though smallpox had high visibility and should therefore have been relatively easy to document, the lack of an international organization dedicated to global health means the number of cases was likely much greater.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The world map illustrates the year the variola virus (the virus that caused smallpox) was no longer endemic in a country.{ref}A disease is no longer endemic when uninterrupted circulation is not happening anymore. This means that there could have been cases after a country had eliminated smallpox but these were imported from an endemic country.{/ref}</p>\n\n\n\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;\" src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/decade-in-which-smallpox-ceased-to-be-endemic-by-country\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\"></iframe>\n\n\n <block type=\"prominent-link\" >\n <link-url>https://owid.cloud/smallpox</link-url>\n <title>More about smallpox</title>\n <content>\n\n<p>You can find out more about the disease and its history in our much more comprehensive Smallpox entry.</p>\n\n</content>\n <figure><img width=\"768\" height=\"542\" src=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2019/11/deaths-from-smallpox-per-1000-population-768x542.png\" class=\"attachment-medium_large size-medium_large\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2019/11/deaths-from-smallpox-per-1000-population-768x542.png 768w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2019/11/deaths-from-smallpox-per-1000-population-400x282.png 400w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2019/11/deaths-from-smallpox-per-1000-population-779x550.png 779w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2019/11/deaths-from-smallpox-per-1000-population-150x106.png 150w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2019/11/deaths-from-smallpox-per-1000-population-1536x1084.png 1536w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2019/11/deaths-from-smallpox-per-1000-population-2048x1446.png 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" /></figure>\n </block>\n\n\n<h3>Rinderpest: eradication began before vaccine against the disease was available</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Rinderpest is the only animal disease that has been eradicated so far. Rinderpest outbreaks in cattles used to cause devastating losses for animal farmers. The eradication efforts began in the 1920s before the vaccine against the rinderpest virus was even available. Measures such as animal quarantine and slaughter were used to contain the disease.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The map here shows the last year in which cases of rinderpest were reported in a country. In 1960 an English veterinary scientist Walter Plowright has developed a vaccine against rinderpest, which finally led to its eradication. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>You can read more about the history of rinderpest eradication in our post <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/how-rinderpest-was-eradicated\">here</a>.</p>\n\n\n\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/year-of-the-last-reported-rinderpest-case\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\"></iframe>\n\n\n <block type=\"prominent-link\" >\n <link-url>https://owid.cloud/how-rinderpest-was-eradicated</link-url>\n <title>How was rinderpest eradicated?</title>\n <content>\n\n<p>You can read more about the history of rinderpest eradication in our post.</p>\n\n</content>\n <figure><img width=\"768\" height=\"542\" src=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2019/10/year-of-the-last-reported-rinderpest-case-768x542.png\" class=\"attachment-medium_large size-medium_large\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2019/10/year-of-the-last-reported-rinderpest-case-768x542.png 768w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2019/10/year-of-the-last-reported-rinderpest-case-150x106.png 150w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2019/10/year-of-the-last-reported-rinderpest-case-400x282.png 400w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2019/10/year-of-the-last-reported-rinderpest-case-779x550.png 779w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" /></figure>\n </block>\n\n\n<h2>Diseases we could eradicate</h2>\n\n\n\n<h3>Polio</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Polio, short for poliomyelitis, is a disease that is caused by the poliovirus. Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin invented two polio <a href=\"https://owid.cloud/vaccination\">vaccines</a> in 1953 and 1961, respectively, which eliminated polio from the United States and Canada in 1979 and rapidly lead to a large reduction of the disease in the Western Europe. While Salk’s vaccine required injection with a needle, Sabin’s vaccine is oral and can be swallowed. The latter feature made its distribution throughout the developing world possible, as fewer trained healthcare staff were required for its administration. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>The chart here highlights the global decline of the <em>estimated</em> number of paralytic polio cases from 1980 onwards. In the peak year 1981, the number of paralytic polio cases are estimated to have exceeded 450,000 but were reduced to 43 cases in 2016 – a more than 100,000-fold reduction of paralytic polio cases. As of 2019, wild polio virus is endemic in only three countries: Afghanistan, Nigeria, and Pakistan. In 2018, 9 countries have reported samples (human or environmental) positive for vaccine-derived poliovirus.</p>\n\n\n\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;\" src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-estimated-paralytic-polio-cases-by-world-region\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\"></iframe>\n\n\n <block type=\"prominent-link\" >\n <link-url>https://owid.cloud/polio</link-url>\n <title>Eradicating polio</title>\n <content>\n\n<p> We provide detailed information on polio and its history in our comprehensive Polio entry.</p>\n\n</content>\n <figure><img width=\"768\" height=\"542\" src=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2018/04/reported-vs-estimated-total-number-of-paralytic-polio-cases-globally-768x542.png\" class=\"attachment-medium_large size-medium_large\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2018/04/reported-vs-estimated-total-number-of-paralytic-polio-cases-globally-768x542.png 768w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2018/04/reported-vs-estimated-total-number-of-paralytic-polio-cases-globally-150x106.png 150w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2018/04/reported-vs-estimated-total-number-of-paralytic-polio-cases-globally-400x282.png 400w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2018/04/reported-vs-estimated-total-number-of-paralytic-polio-cases-globally-750x529.png 750w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" /></figure>\n </block>\n\n\n<h3>Guinea worm disease (dracunculiasis)</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Guinea worm disease is caused by <em>Dracunculus medinensis</em> worm. There is no vaccine against the disease, however, it can be successfully eliminated by identification and treatment of all current cases of the disease. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>In 2021, 15 cases of Guinea worm were reported, which were in Chad (8 cases), South Sudan (4 cases), Mali (2 cases), and Ethiopia (1 case).</p>\n\n\n <block type=\"prominent-link\" >\n <link-url>https://owid.cloud/guinea-worm-is-on-the-path-of-being-eradicated</link-url>\n <title>Guinea worm is on the path of being eradicated</title>\n <content>\n\n<p>You can read more about the disease and its eradication here.</p>\n\n</content>\n <figure><img width=\"768\" height=\"542\" src=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2019/11/number-of-reported-guinea-worm-dracunculiasis-cases-768x542.png\" class=\"attachment-medium_large size-medium_large\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2019/11/number-of-reported-guinea-worm-dracunculiasis-cases-768x542.png 768w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2019/11/number-of-reported-guinea-worm-dracunculiasis-cases-400x282.png 400w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2019/11/number-of-reported-guinea-worm-dracunculiasis-cases-779x550.png 779w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2019/11/number-of-reported-guinea-worm-dracunculiasis-cases-150x106.png 150w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2019/11/number-of-reported-guinea-worm-dracunculiasis-cases-1536x1084.png 1536w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2019/11/number-of-reported-guinea-worm-dracunculiasis-cases-2048x1446.png 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" /></figure>\n </block>\n\n\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-reported-guinea-worm-dracunculiasis-cases?time=2021\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\"></iframe>\n\n\n\n<h3>Lymphatic filariasis</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Lymphatic filariasis is a disease caused by roundworms. It is not a fatal but highly debilitating disease. It causes the swelling of lymph nodes, which in turn can cause painful swelling of arms, legs and other parts of the body. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>In 2017 more than 62 million people lived with lymphatic filariasis. Majority of cases occur in Sub-Saharan Africa, South-Asia and Indonesia.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>While the lymphatic filariasis-causing roundworms are transmitted by mosquitoes, the transmission can be effectively stopped by preventive chemotherapy. WHO and its partners have been working on mass drug administration campaigns (MDAs) to stop the transmission of the diseases. Rather than targeting just the infected individuals, MDAs target groups of people living in endemic areas.{ref}<a class=\"\" href=\"http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/275719/WER9344.pdf?ua=1\">Global programme to eliminate lymphatic filariasis: progress report, 2017</a>{/ref}Since 2000 <strong>7.7 </strong>billion treatments preventive chemotherapy have been administered via MDA campaigns. </p>\n\n\n\n<iframe src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/prevalence-of-lymphatic-filariasis\" style=\"width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;\"></iframe>\n\n\n\n<h3>Measles, mumps and rubella</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Measles, mumps and rubella are three viral diseases that can be prevented by child vaccination.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The only known hosts of these viruses are humans, which makes it a good target for eradication. One of the major obstacles for eradicating these diseases is the misperception of the seriousness of the disease in the public, which leads to <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/vaccination#measles-global-vaccination-coverage-and-decline-of-measles\">insufficient vaccination rates</a>. Insufficient information on the disease prevalence and lacking means in developing countries are also important factors. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>Combined, the World Health Organisation has registered more than 741,000 cases of these three diseases in 2017. This number is likely to be an underestimate since not all cases are reported to the WHO. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>Measles is a highly contagious killer of young children globally, despite a safe and effective vaccine being available. In 2017 110,000 people died because of measles, the majority of whom were children younger than 5.{ref} Figures are updated by the WHO here: <a href=\"http://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/measles\">http://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/measles</a> {/ref} The visualization here shows, the increase of the global vaccination coverage of one-year-olds and the simultaneous decline of reported cases of measles; from close to 1,000 cases per million people globally to 28 cases per million. This represents a 33-fold reduction.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mumps infection occurs via direct human contact or by airborne droplets. It causes painful swelling at the side of the face under the ears (the parotid glands), fever, headache and muscle aches. It can cause sterility in teenagers and adults.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Rubella is usually mild in children but up to 90% of infections during pregnancy can result in complications and in approximately 20% of those cases result in fetal death.</p>\n\n\n\n<iframe src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/measles-vaccine-coverage-worldwide-vs-measles-cases-worldwide\" style=\"width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;\"></iframe>\n\n\n\n<h3>Cysticercosis</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Cysticercosis is a parasitic tissue infection of tissues (including brain and muscle tissue) caused by larval cysts of the pork tapeworm (Taenia solium). In low income countries these infections are a major cause of adult onset seizures. More information on the disease can be found on the website of the CDC <a href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/parasites/cysticercosis/index.html\">here</a>.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The <em>International Task Force for Disease Eradication</em> has put cysticercosis on a list of eradicable diseases back in 1993. However, the disease still affects millions of people globally. WHO estimates that 2.56\u20138.30 million people had neurocysticercosis in 2015.{ref}This includes both symptomatic and asymptomatic cases and is estimated based on data available for epilepsy. 80% of people with epilepsy live in areas affected by cysticercosis and of those 30% are thought to be caused by the tapeworm infection <a href=\"https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/taeniasis-cysticercosis\">https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/taeniasis-cysticercosis</a>{/ref} The disease is caused by tapeworms, which can affect the nervous system and cause severe epileptic seizures. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>The map here shows the estimated rate of prevalence of cysticercosis. As is shown, the disease is most prevalent in Mexico and countries in South America, and Sub-Saharan and Southern Africa. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>Eradication of cysticercosis in humans relies on the ability to break the tapeworm transmission cycle between humans and pigs. This can effectively be done through sanitary measures and proper inspection and cooking of pork. Furthermore, vaccines against the tapeworm are now available for the use in pigs, and oxfendazole drug can be used to remove the tapeworm from animals.{ref}Maurice, J. (2014). <a href=\"https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(14)61353-2/fulltext\">Of pigs and people\u2014WHO prepares to battle cysticercosis</a>. <em>The Lancet</em>, <em>384</em>(9943), 571-572.{/ref}</p>\n\n\n\n<iframe src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/prevalence-cysticercosis\" style=\"width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;\"></iframe>\n\n\n\n<h2>Diseases that could be eliminated in some parts of the world</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The process of disease eradication is always ongoing. As new treatments become available and as we start to better understand the disease ecology new avenues open for the eradication of diseases. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>There is no one defined path for disease eradication. Eradication is usually the final goal, and control of disease spread or local disease elimination is usually a more near-future goal for most diseases. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>On the list of diseases that could potentially be eliminated in parts of the world are yaws, malaria, and trachoma.</p>\n\n\n\n<h3>Yaws</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Yaws is a disease caused by the bacterium <em>Treponema pallidum</em>. The disease results in painful skin lesions, which can extend to damage in bones and cartilage. The disease is rarely fatal, however highly debilitating. Humans are the only known hosts for the bacterium that causes yaws and infections can be successfully treated by a single dose of antibiotic azithromycin. These factors make the disease a good target for eradication. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>The exact burden of the disease is not known, primarily because of the lack of a global monitoring system for the disease. The world map visualizes the data that is available \u2013 a country\u2019s status of endemicity in 2021. Fifteen countries are known to be endemic for the disease. Many other countries, which were previously endemic, don’t monitor the disease and their status is therefore unknown, these countries are shown in yellow on the map. Countries where yaws is currently endemic are depicted in orange on the map.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Thanks to determined mass treatment and monitoring, India has eliminated yaws. India is colored green in the map.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>On Our World in Data Sophie Ochmann and Hannah Behrens discuss the prospects for eradicating yaws in <em><a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/can-the-world-eradicate-another-disease\">Can the world eradicate another disease?</a></em></p>\n\n\n\n<iframe src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/status-of-yaws-endemicity\" style=\"width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;\"></iframe>\n\n\n\n<h3>Trachoma</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Trachoma is a disease caused by the bacterium <em>Chlamydia trachomatis</em>. The disease affects eyes and causes blindness. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>The map shows the global prevalence of trachoma. Limited information is available on the surveillance of the disease. The WHO states that 1.9 million people live with trachoma-caused blindness, and 142 million people are at risk of infection.{ref}See the WHO information on trachoma here: <a href=\"https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/trachoma#\">https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/trachoma#</a>{/ref}</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Trachoma can be prevented by sanitary measures such as <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/water-access\">access to clean water</a> and facial cleanliness. Mass administration of antibiotics can successfully stop disease transmission and surgery can reverse blindness caused by the disease. </p>\n\n\n\n<iframe src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/trachoma-prevalence-age-standardized-ihme\" style=\"width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;\"></iframe>\n\n\n\n<h3>Onchocerciasis</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Onchocerciasis, also called river blindness, is an eye infection caused by a parasitic worm. The disease leads to blindness, skin damage and sometimes epilepsy. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Global Burden of Disease study has estimated that the prevalence of river blindness was 20.9 million in 2017; 1.2 million of these cases resulted in blindness, 14.7 related in skin lesions and 5 million were asymptomatic.{ref}James, S. L., Abate, D., Abate, K. H., Abay, S. M., Abbafati, C., Abbasi, N., … & Abdollahpour, I. (2018). <a href=\"https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(18)32279-7/fulltext\">Global, regional, and national incidence, prevalence, and years lived with disability for 354 diseases and injuries for 195 countries and territories, 1990\u20132017: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017</a>. <em>The Lancet</em>, <em>392</em>(10159), 1789-1858.{/ref} Prevalence of onchocerciasis is shown in the map. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>Recent evidence suggests that mass drug administration with coverage of at least 80% can stop disease transmission.{ref}Hill, E., Hall, J., Letourneau, I. D., Donkers, K., Shirude, S., Pigott, D. M., … & Cromwell, E. A. (2019). <a href=\"https://www.nature.com/articles/s41597-019-0079-5\">A database of geopositioned onchocerciasis prevalence data.</a> <em>Scientific data</em>, <em>6</em>(1), 67.{/ref}</p>\n\n\n\n<iframe src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/prevalence-of-onchocerciasis\" style=\"width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;\"></iframe>\n\n\n\n<h3>Malaria</h3>\n\n\n\n<p> The Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) provides estimates of malaria deaths from the year 1990 onwards. Over this period we see a clear rise-peak-fall trend, increasing from around 670,000 deaths in 1990; peaking at around 930,000 in 2004; and then declining (although at varying rates) to around 620,000 in 2017.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Bill & Melinda Gates foundation proposed a plan to end malaria by 2040.{ref}<a href=\"http://endmalaria2040.org/\">http://endmalaria2040.org/</a>{/ref} The eradication plan largely relies on the development of new ways to prevent and treat the disease, such as effective vaccines, longer-lasting bed-nets and parasite resistance management programs.{ref}Feachem, R. G., Chen, I., Akbari, O., Bertozzi-Villa, A., Bhatt, S., Binka, F., … & Eapen, A. (2019). <a href=\"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673619311390\">Malaria eradication within a generation: ambitious, achievable, and necessary. </a><em>The Lancet</em>, <em>394</em>(10203), 1056-1112.{/ref} It is estimated that an increase in funding (at least a doubling of funding between 2015 and 2025 to annual costs of $6 billion) is also required. </p>\n\n\n <block type=\"prominent-link\" >\n <link-url>https://owid.cloud/malaria</link-url>\n <title>More about malaria</title>\n <content>\n\n<p>You can read more about malaria, its history and the efforts to reduce its burden in our entry on the topic.</p>\n\n</content>\n <figure><img width=\"768\" height=\"371\" src=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2019/04/Previous-prevalence-of-malaria-world-map-768x371.png\" class=\"attachment-medium_large size-medium_large\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2019/04/Previous-prevalence-of-malaria-world-map-768x371.png 768w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2019/04/Previous-prevalence-of-malaria-world-map-150x72.png 150w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2019/04/Previous-prevalence-of-malaria-world-map-400x193.png 400w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2019/04/Previous-prevalence-of-malaria-world-map-800x386.png 800w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" /></figure>\n </block>\n\n\n<iframe src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/malaria-deaths-by-region\" style=\"width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;\"></iframe>\n\n\n\n<h2>Useful references</h2>\n\n\n\n<h4>Hopkins (2013) \u2013 Disease Eradication</h4>\n\n\n\n<ul><li><strong>Description:</strong> A good summary of the methods available to eradicate Guinea worm disease, polio, malaria, lymphatic filariasis and river blindness. Figure 1 of the paper is especially helpful as an illustrated summary.</li><li><strong>Date of publication:</strong> 3 January 2013</li><li><strong>Available at:</strong> <a rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMra1200391\" target=\"_blank\">http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMra1200391</a></li></ul>\n\n\n\n<h4>Online publication <em>The History of Vaccines</em></h4>\n\n\n\n<ul><li><strong>Description:</strong> This web publication is published by <em>The College of Physicians of Philadelphia</em> and describes disease eradication in general, but also discusses specific vaccine-preventable diseases (found in the table of content on the left) in an accessible and interactive way.</li><li><strong>Date of publication:</strong> Last updated 25 January 2018</li><li><strong>Available at:</strong> <a rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https://www.historyofvaccines.org/content/articles/disease-eradication\" target=\"_blank\">https://www.historyofvaccines.org/content/articles/disease-eradication</a></li></ul>\n\n\n\n<h4>Hemingway (2017) \u2013 The way forward for vector control</h4>\n\n\n\n<ul><li><strong>Description:</strong> This article discusses how vector-borne diseases, specifically with insects like malaria, can be controlled, eliminated or even eradicated.</li><li><strong>Date of publication:</strong> 24 November 2017</li><li><strong>Available at:</strong> <a rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"http://science.sciencemag.org/content/358/6366/998\" target=\"_blank\">http://science.sciencemag.org/content/358/6366/998</a></li></ul>\n\n\n\n<h2>Data sources</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>We provide all data sources for this entry on a separate <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/sources-for-eradication-of-diseases\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">page</a>.</p>\n", "protected": false }, "excerpt": { "rendered": "Which ones could we eradicate in our lifetimes and how?", "protected": false }, "date_gmt": "2014-06-03T22:59:55", "modified": "2023-06-18T17:42:48", "template": "", "categories": [ 44, 46, 171 ], "menu_order": 188, "ping_status": "closed", "authors_name": [ "Max Roser", "Sophie Ochmann", "Hannah Behrens", "Hannah Ritchie", "Bernadeta Dadonaite" ], "modified_gmt": "2023-06-18T16:42:48", "comment_status": "open", "featured_media": 21341, "featured_media_paths": { "thumbnail": "/app/uploads/2018/10/the-number-of-infections-from-eradicable-diseases-150x106.png", "medium_large": "/app/uploads/2018/10/the-number-of-infections-from-eradicable-diseases-768x542.png" } } |