In October of this year, when the World Health Organization declared that polio’s type 3 strain had been eradicated, the world was able to have a sigh of relief, as it became a slightly better place. Both the type 3 and type 2 strains have been eradicated and no longer exist outside of highly secure laboratories, with the type 1 remaining the only strain at large. Thanks to the thousands of people who have worked hard for this to happen, the two strains will no longer cause paralysis and death.
While it was once just a dream, permanently ending diseases has been within our power since 1980, when smallpox was eradicated after an intense campaign. This victory has saved roughly 200 million people who would otherwise have succumbed to the disease since then.
But other attempts to rid the world of diseases have not gone as smoothly. Doctors have been working on ending polio for 31 years, initially hoping it would be completely gone by 2000. Now, due to difficulties tracking the disease, the target eradication date for the remaining type 1 strain is 2023. Another pathogen nearing eradication is a parasite known as Guinea worm, but again, problems have complicated that campaign, and others as well.
So what was it about smallpox that made it so much simpler to eradicate? What makes an organism eradicable in the first place?
More about this topic over at Quanta Magazine.
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