7.4: How do we Eradicate Infectious Diseases?
To completely eradicate an infectious disease from the planet, the pathogen that causes that disease must be completely gone or unable to cause the disease in humans anymore. Although this is a possibility for many diseases, eradication has only happened once - with smallpox. Other diseases have been eliminated from some geographical areas (where there is no longer transmission of that disease), but haven’t been completely eradicated. Often, poorer countries are burdened with highly preventable, curable, or treatable diseases that are no longer problematic in wealthier countries. And just because a disease has been eliminated or even eradicated, doesn’t mean we don’t still need to be prepared for the possibility of it re-emerging, particularly if it is a zoonotic or vector-borne disease (Roser et al., 2024).