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Eradicating COVID more feasible than polio, less than smallpox: Analysis

DTMT Network

Eradicating coronavirus across the globe is theoretically more feasible than for polio but much less so than it was for smallpox, according to a new analysis by New Zealand researchers.

While writing in the international journal BMJ Global Health, the researchers ranked the feasibility of eradicating the three diseases based on technical, socio-political, and economic factors.

Smallpox—declared eradicated in 1980, had the highest average score for eradication feasibility. It had an average score of 2.7 on a three-point scale across 17 variables.

In comparison to COVID-19 had an average score of 1.6 and polio had an average of 1.5.

The analysis puts eradicating COVID-19 into the realms of possibility in terms of technical feasibility, says Professor Nick Wilson from the University of Otago, Wellington.

He added that the combination of vaccination programmes, public health measures, and the global interest in fighting the disease contribute to making eradication possible.

“Elimination of COVID-19 at the country level has been achieved and sustained for long periods in various parts of the Asia Pacific region, which suggests that global eradication is possible,” Professor Wilson said.

Vaccination programmes are responsible for the global eradication of smallpox and two of the three serotypes of poliovirus. There are few other diseases that are close to being eradicated without the vaccination programmes, with China recently becoming the 40th country to be certified malaria-free.

The researchers took into account a wide range of factors while calculating the ranking of the feasibility of eradication for the three diseases that includes the availability of safe and effective vaccines, the possibility of lifelong immunity, the impact of public health measures, effective infection control messaging by governments, political and public concern about the infection and public acceptance of infection control measures.

According to Prof. Wilson, while there has been a focus on the need to reach herd immunity to overcome COVID, population immunity may not be necessary to fight the virus, with smallpox having been eradicated through ring-vaccination programmes that target the contacts of those infected.

The researchers say the challenges of eradicating coronavirus relative to smallpox and polio include poor vaccine acceptance in some countries and the emergence of variants of the virus that may be more transmissible or able to evade the protection from vaccines.

But Professor Wilson says that the virus will eventually reach the limit of its ability to mutate into more infectious forms, and new vaccines will likely be formulated to deal with evolving strains of the virus.

Other challenges include the high cost of vaccinating the world’s population and upgrading health facilities and achieving global cooperation in the face of aggressive anti-science movements and vaccine nationalism.

Professor Wilson says while the infectious virus may infect wild and domestic animals, this is unlikely to be a serious challenge to eradication.

“Wild animal infections with SARS-CoV-2 appear to be fairly rare to date and when companion animals become infected, they don’t appear to reinfect humans,” Prof. Wilson said.

A co-author of the article, Professor Michael Baker from the University’s Department of Public Health, says it may be possible to harness the international concern about the COVID-19.

“The massive scale of the health, social and economic impacts of COVID-19 in most of the world has generated unprecedented global interest in disease control and massive investment in vaccination programmes. Unlike smallpox and polio, control of COVID-19 also benefits from the added impact of public health measures, such as border controls, social distancing, contact tracing, and mask-wearing, which can be very effective if well deployed,” Professor Michael said.


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