Journal of infectious diseases and diagnosis is an open access rapid peer reviewed journal in the field of Bacterial, Viral and Fungal Diseases. It is a bimonthly journal.

Eradication is the reduction of an infectious disease's prevalence in the global host population to zero.

Two infectious diseases have successfully been eradicated which include smallpox in humans and rinderpest in ruminants. There are four ongoing programs, targeting the human diseases poliomyelitis, yaws, dracunculiasis, and malaria. Five more infectious diseases have been identified as of April 2008 as potentially eradicable with current technology by the Carter Center International Task Force for Disease Eradication—measles, mumps, rubella, lymphatic filariasis and cysticercosis.

The concept of disease eradication is sometimes confused with disease elimination, which is the reduction of an infectious disease's prevalence in a regional population to zero, or the reduction of the global prevalence to a negligible amount. Further confusion arises from the use of the term 'eradication' to refer to the total removal of a given pathogen from an individual, particularly in the context of HIV and certain other viruses where such cures are sought.

The targeting of infectious diseases for eradication is based on narrow criteria, as both biological and technical features determine whether a pathogenic organism is eradicable. The targeted pathogen must not have a significant non-human reservoir. This requires sufficient understanding of the life cycle and transmission of the pathogen. An efficient and practical intervention must be available to interrupt transmission. Studies of measles in the pre-vaccination era led to the concept of the critical community size, the minimal size of the population below which a pathogen ceases to circulate. The use of vaccination programs before the introduction of an eradication campaign can reduce the susceptible population. The disease to be eradicated should be clearly identifiable, and an accurate diagnostic tool should exist. Economic considerations, as well as societal and political support and commitment, are other crucial factors that determine eradication feasibility.

Eradicated diseases

So far, two diseases have been successfully eradicated one specifically affecting humans and one affecting a wide range of ruminants.

Smallpox

Smallpox was the first disease, and so far the only infectious disease of humans, to be eradicated by deliberate intervention. It became the first disease for which there was an effective vaccine in 1798 when Edward Jenner showed the protective effect of inoculation of humans with material from cowpox lesions.

Rinderpest

During the twentieth century, there were a series of campaigns to eradicate rinderpest, a viral disease which infected cattle and other ruminants and belonged to the same family as measles, primarily through the use of a live attenuated vaccine. The final, successful campaign was led by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. On 14 October 2010, with no diagnoses for nine years, the Food and Agriculture Organization announced that the disease had been completely eradicated, making this the first disease of livestock to have been eradicated by human undertakings.

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Media contact:

Eliza Grace

Managing Editor

Journal of Infectious Diseases and Diagnosis

Mail ID: editor.jidd@longdomjournal.org