Disease Elimination & Eradication

 

Because I'm tired of reading and overhearing people yell "conspiracy" "government control" "Democratic Plot". Seriously, were you all born under a rock? If you were my students, we'd be having a pop quiz about now.

Do you see Polio or Smallpox anywhere? Nope, thanks to mandatory vaccines, you probably never will. Did you or your kids not have vaccine cards that were Xeroxed and kept on file with the schools? Covid-19 parameters are no different.

Why not call St. Joes or Glendale Memorial and ask them the requirements for employment and volunteering; mandatory Hepatitis and Flu vaccine. Pretty sure this has been in place for years & neither hospital are part of a communist plot.

We had people drop like flies, until masks, a shut down, social distancing, and a vaccine.

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The Dahlem Workshop discussed the hierarchy of possible public health interventions in dealing with infectious diseases, which were deflned as control, elimination of disease, elimination of infections, eradication, and extinction. The indicators of eradicability were the availability of effective interventions and practical diagnostic tools and the essential need for humans in the life-cycle of the agent. Since health resources are limited, decisions have to be made as to whether their use for an elimination or eradication programme is preferable to their use elsewhere. The costs and beneflts of global eradication programmes concern direct effects on morbidity and mortality and consequent effects on the health care system. The success of any disease eradication initiative depends strongly on the level of societal and political commitment, with a key role for the World Health Assembly. Eradication and ongoing programmes constitute potentially complementary approaches to public health. Elimination and eradication are the ultimate goals of public health, evolving naturally from disease control. The basic question is whether these goals are to be achieved in the present or some future generation.

• Control: The reduction of disease incidence, prevalence, morbidity or mortality to a locally acceptable level as a result of deliberate efforts; continued intervention measures are required to maintain the reduction. Example: diarrhoeal diseases.
• Elimination of disease: Reduction to zero of the incidence of a specified disease in a defined geographical area as a result of deliberate efforts; continued intervention measures are required. Example: neonatal tetanus.
• Elimination of infections: Reduction to zero of the incidence of infection caused by a specific agent in a defined geographical area as a result of deliberate efforts; continued measures to prevent re-establishment of transmission are required. Example: measles, poliomyelitis.
• Eradication: Permanent reduction to zero of the worldwide incidence of infection caused by a specific agent as a result of deliberate efforts; intervention measures are no longer needed. Example: smallpox.
• Extinction: The specific infectious agent no longer exists in nature or in the laboratory.

... read on: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/su48a7.htm

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Eradication of Diseases

... read on, this site is so amazing: https://ourworldindata.org/eradication-of-diseases

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What makes a disease eradicable?

Two necessary conditions

1. It has to be an infectious disease. This means you can “catch” it from other humans or animals. Non-infectious diseases, such as heart disease or cancer, cannot be eradicated.

2. Measures to fight against the disease have to exist. The appropriate measure to fight the disease depends on the type of pathogen and the way of transmission. For instance, antibiotics only work against bacteria, whilst anti-retrovirals only work against retroviruses. The way the disease is transmitted matters as well: if diseases spread via drinking water, filtering can stop the disease; if spread via mosquitoes, bed nets can stop the disease, etc.

... read on https://ourworldindata.org/what-makes-a-disease-eradicable

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History & Timeline of Vaccines: https://www.historyofvaccines.org/timeline/all

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