Some diseases have already been eliminated from large regions of the world, and/or are currently being targeted for regional elimination. This is sometimes described as "eradication", although technically the term only applies when this is achieved on a global scale. The term "micro-elimination" has also been used, referring to elimination of a disease from a target population within a geographical area. Even after regional elimination is successful, interventions often need to continue to prevent a disease becoming re-established. Three of the diseases here listed (lymphatic filariasis, measles, and rubella) are among the diseases believed to be potentially eradicable by the International Task Force for Disease Eradication, and if successful, regional elimination programs may yet prove a stepping stone to later global eradication programs. This section does not cover elimination where it is used to mean control programs sufficiently tight to reduce the burden of an infectious disease or other health problem to a level where they may be deemed to have little impact on
public health, such as the
leprosy, neonatal
tetanus, or
obstetric fistula campaigns.
Other worm infections Other than Dracunculiasis and lymphatic filariasis, there is no global commitment to eliminate
helminthiasis (worm infections); however, the
London Declaration on Neglected Tropical Diseases and the WHO aim to control worm infections, including
schistosomiasis and
soil-transmitted helminthiasis (which are caused by roundworms, whipworms and hookworms). It is estimated that between 576 and 740 million individuals are infected with hookworm. Of these infected individuals, about 80 million are severely affected.
Soil-transmitted helminthiasis The current WHO goals are to control soil-transmitted helminthiasis (STH) by 2020 to a point where it does not pose a serious public health problem any more in children and 75% of children have received deworming interventions. By 2018, an average of 60% of school children were reached, however only 16 countries reached more than 75% coverage of pre-school children and 28 countries reached over 75% coverage of school-age children. Sizeable donations of a total of 3.3 billion deworming tablets by
GlaxoSmithKline and
Johnson & Johnson since 2010 to the WHO allowed progress on its goals.
Schistosomiasis The WHO set a goal to control morbidity of
schistosomiasis by 2020 and eliminate the public health problems associated with it by 2025 (bringing infections down to less than 1% of the population). The effort is assisted by the
Schistosomiasis Control Initiative. In 2018, a total of 63% of all school age children were treated.
Hookworm In
North American countries, such as the
United States, elimination of
hookworm had been attained due to scientific advances. Despite the United States declaring that it had eliminated hookworm decades ago, a 2017 study showed it was present in
Lowndes County, Alabama. The
Rockefeller Foundation's hookworm campaign in the 1920s was supposed to focus on the eradication of hookworm infections for those living in
Mexico and other rural areas. However, the campaign was politically influenced, causing it to be less successful, and regions such as Mexico still deal with these infections from
parasitic worms. This use of health campaigns by political leaders for political and economic advantages has been termed the science-politics paradox.
Measles As of 2018, all six WHO regions have goals to eliminate
measles,
The Americas set a goal in 1994 to eliminate measles and rubella transmission by 2000, and successfully achieved a reduction in cases from over 250,000 in 1990 to only 105 cases in 2003. However, while eradication in the Americas was certified in 2015, the certification was lost in 2018 due to endemic measles transmission in Venezuela and subsequent spread to Brazil and Colombia; , a total of 82 countries were certified to have eliminated endemic measle transmission. further declining to 145,700 in 2013. however, progress has since stalled since and both the 2010 and 2015 target were missed: in 2018, still over 140,000 deaths were reported. As of 2018, global vaccination efforts have reached 86% coverage of the first dose of the measles vaccine and 68% coverage of the second dose. The last confirmed endemic case of measles in the Americas was in Brazil in July 2015. May 2017 saw a return of measles to the US after an outbreak in Minnesota among unvaccinated children. Another outbreak occurred in the state of
New York between 2018 and 2019, causing over 200 confirmed measles cases in mostly
ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities. Subsequent outbreaks occurred in New Jersey and Washington state with over 30 cases reported in the Pacific Northwest. In 2025, Canada had a substantial resurgence of measles with over 5,000 measles cases across the country, resulting in its loss of its measles elimination status. This also means that the region of the Americas is now the only region in the world to have gained and then lost measles elimination status twice. The WHO European region missed its elimination target of 2010 as well as the new target of 2015 despite overall coverage of 90% of the first dose of the measles vaccine.
Rubella Four out of six WHO regions have goals to eliminate rubella, with the WHO recommending using existing measles programmes for vaccination with combined vaccines such as the
MMR vaccine. The number of reported cases dropped from 670,000 in the year 2000 to below 15,000 in 2018, and the global coverage of rubella vaccination was estimated at 69% in 2018 by the WHO. The WHO region of the Americas declared on 29 April 2015 it had eliminated rubella and congenital rubella syndrome. The last confirmed endemic case of rubella in the Americas was in Argentina in February 2009. Australia achieved eradication in 2018. , 82 countries were certified to have eliminated rubella. The WHO European region missed its elimination target of 2010 as well as the new target of 2015 due to poor vaccine uptake in Central and Western Europe. As of 2018, 39 countries out of 53 European countries have eliminated endemic Rubella and three additional ones that have interrupted transmission; a total of 850 confirmed rubella cases were reported in the European region in 2018 with 438 of these in Poland. Elimination of this disease is under way in the region of the Americas, where this disease was endemic to
Brazil,
Colombia,
Ecuador,
Guatemala,
Mexico and
Venezuela. The principal tool being used is mass
ivermectin treatment. If successful, the only remaining endemic locations would be in
Africa and
Yemen. In Africa, it is estimated that greater than 102 million people in 19 countries are at high risk of onchocerciasis infection, and in 2008, 56.7 million people in 15 of these countries received community-directed treatment with ivermectin. Since adopting such treatment measures in 1997, the African Programme for Onchocerciasis Control reports a reduction in the prevalence of onchocerciasis in the countries under its mandate from a pre-intervention level of 46.5% in 1995 to 28.5% in 2008. Some African countries, such as
Uganda, are also attempting elimination and successful elimination was reported in 2009 from two endemic foci in Mali and
Senegal. On 29 July 2013, the
Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) announced that after 16 years of efforts,
Colombia had become the first country in the world to eliminate the parasitic disease onchocerciasis. It has also been eliminated in Ecuador (2014), Mexico (2015), and Guatemala (2016). The only remaining countries in America in which the disease is endemic are
Brazil and
Venezuela as of 2021.
Prion diseases Following an epidemic of
variant Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease (vCJD) in the UK in the 1990s, there have been campaigns to eliminate
bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in cattle across the European Union and beyond which have achieved large reductions in the number of cattle with this disease. Cases of vCJD have also fallen since then, from an annual peak of 29 cases in 2000 to five in 2008 and none in 2012. Two cases were reported in both 2013 and 2014: two in France, one in the United Kingdom and one in the United States. Following the ongoing eradication effort, only seven cases of BSE were reported worldwide in 2013: three in the United Kingdom, two in France, one in Ireland, and one in Poland. This is the lowest number of cases since at least 1988. In 2015, there were at least six reported cases (three of the atypical H-type). Four cases were reported globally in 2017, and the condition is considered to be nearly eradicated. With the cessation of cannibalism among the
Fore people, the last known victims of
kuru died in 2005 or 2009, but the disease has a very long incubation period.
Syphilis In 2007, the WHO launched a roadmap for the elimination of congenital syphilis (mother to child transmission). In 2015,
Cuba became the first country in the world to eliminate mother-to-child
syphilis. In 2017 the WHO declared that
Antigua and Barbuda,
Saint Kitts and Nevis and four
British Overseas Territories—
Anguilla,
Bermuda,
Cayman Islands, and
Montserrat—have been certified that they have ended transmission of mother-to-child syphilis and
HIV. In 2018,
Malaysia also achieved certification. Nevertheless, eradication of syphilis by all transmission methods remains unresolved and many questions about the eradication effort remain to be answered.
African trypanosomiasis Early planning by the WHO for the eradication of
African trypanosomiasis, also known as
sleeping sickness, is underway as the rate of reported cases continues to decline and passive treatment is continued. The WHO aims to eliminate transmission of the
Trypanosoma brucei gambiense parasite by 2030, though it acknowledges that this goal "leaves no room for complacency." The eradication and control efforts have been progressing well, with the number of reported cases dropping below 10,000 in 2009 for the first time; with only 992 cases reported in 2019 and 565 cases in 2020. The vast majority of the 565 cases in 2020 (over 60%) were recorded in the
Democratic Republic of the Congo. The (PATTEC) works to eradicate the
vector (the
tsetse fly) population levels and subsequently the
protozoan disease, by use of insecticide-impregnated targets, fly traps, insecticide-treated cattle, ultra-low dose aerial/ground spraying (SAT) of tsetse resting sites and the
sterile insect technique (SIT). The use of SIT in Zanzibar proved effective in eliminating the entire population of tsetse flies but was expensive and is relatively impractical to use in many of the endemic countries afflicted with African trypanosomiasis.
Rabies Because the
rabies virus is almost always caught from animals, rabies eradication has focused on reducing the population of wild and stray animals,
controls and compulsory
quarantine on animals entering the country, and vaccination of pets and wild animals. Many
island nations, including
Iceland,
Ireland,
Japan,
Malta, and the
United Kingdom, managed to eliminate rabies during the twentieth century, and more recently much of
continental Europe has been declared rabies-free.
Chagas disease Chagas disease is caused by
Trypanosoma cruzi and is mostly spread by
Triatominae. It is
endemic to 21 countries in
Latin America. There are over 30,000 new cases per year and 12,000 deaths due to the disease. Eradication efforts focus on the elimination of vector-borne transmission and the elimination of the vectors themselves. The elimination of transmission of leprosy is part of the WHO "Towards zero leprosy" strategy to be implemented until 2030. It aims to reduce transmission to zero in 120 countries and reduce the number of new cases to about 60,000 per year (from c. 200,000 cases in 2019). These goals are supported by the Global Partnership for Zero Leprosy (GPZL) and the
London Declaration on Neglected Tropical Diseases. However, a lack of understanding of the disease and its transmission, and the long incubation period of the
M. leprae pathogen, have so far prevented the formulation of a full-scale eradication strategy. ==Eradicable diseases in animals==