Joanna Thompson at Undark:
Vaccination led to the global eradication of smallpox in 1980. Even today, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation lists one of the goals of its malaria program as “ending malaria for good.” In recent years, Tufts University launched its Lyme Disease Initiative with the stated aim to “eradicate Lyme disease by 2030.”
But as new zoonotic diseases emerge (and resurge), the goal of a world free of such diseases is beginning to feel like a pipe dream to an increasing number of researchers.
“Trying to put a lot of money into the eradication of these diseases with complex ecologies is just throwing money away,” said Susan Jones, an ecologist and historian of life sciences at the University of Minnesota. Instead, Jones and her colleagues argue, we should invest more into control and protection against certain diseases — and learn to live alongside them.
More here.