Rethinking disease eradication: putting countries first

Abstract There have been various infectious disease eradication programs implemented in various parts of the world with varying degrees of success since the early 1900s. Of all those programs, the one that achieved monumental success was the Smallpox Eradication Program (SEP). Most of the global health leaders and authorities that came up with the new idea of disease eradication in the 1980s tried to design and shape the new programs based on their experience in the SEP. The SEP had a very effective tool, vaccine, that did not require a cold chain system, and a relatively simple way of administration. The total cost of the eradication program was about US$300 million and the entire campaign took about 10 y. However, the Guinea worm and polio eradication programs that followed in the footsteps of SEP attained varying levels of success, consuming a huge amount of resources and taking a much longer time (>30 y each). This paper reviews the factors that played major roles in hindering the attainment of eradication goals and outlines possible recommendations for the way forward. Among other things, this paper strongly emphasizes that endemic countries should take the lead in all matters pertaining to making decisions for disease elimination and/or eradication initiatives and that ‘elimination as a public health problem’ is the preferred option rather than going for complete eradication at the expense of other health programs and thereby contributing to weakening of already fragile health systems, mainly in Africa.