List of diseases eliminated from the United States

This is a list of diseases known (or declared) to have been eliminated from the United States, either permanently or at one time. Most of the diseases listed were eliminated after coordinated public health campaigns. (Since some diseases can be eliminated and then reintroduced at a later time, such diseases are still eligible for the list, but with the fact of reintroduction noted.) Some entries are based on formal public health declarations, others are based on reliable information in the medical or public health literature. Since some diseases can be eliminated, but subsequently reimported without transmitting additional endemic cases, these are noted in a dedicated column. Although no fixed rule always applies, many infectious diseases (e.g., measles) are considered eliminated when no cases have been reported to public health authorities for at least 12 months.

(NB: In recent years, "elimination" is the preferred term for "regional eradication" of a disease; the term "eradication" is reserved for the reduction of an infectious disease's global prevalence to zero.)

The eliminated diseases

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

Disease	Date last endemic case	Date last imported case	Notes	Reference(s)
Yellow fever	1905	1996	Last epidemic 1905, New Orleans; last imported case 1996 (prior to that 1924)	[1]
Smallpox	1934	1949	After widespread national vaccination efforts; declared eradicated worldwide in 1980.	[2]
Babesia bovis babesiosis	1943		Cattle disease; occasionally infects humans.
Malaria	1951	Frequent	See National Malaria Eradication Program
Poliomyelitis	1979		After widespread national vaccination efforts; see Poliomyelitis eradication.
Measles	2000	2014	After widespread national vaccination efforts.	[3]
Diphtheria	2012		After widespread national vaccination efforts.	[4]

Possible future eliminations

Various public health projects are ongoing with a goal of eliminating diseases from the country. Note that several infectious diseases in the United States, not on the above list, are considered close to elimination (98-99% reductions): e.g., Hemophilus influenzae, mumps, rubella, congenital rubella, tetanus. Other disease pathogens (e.g., those of anthrax and rabies) have been almost entirely eliminated from humans in the US, but remain as hazards in the environment and so cannot accurately be described as eliminated. The stated goal of "eradication" of hookworm from the southeast US (1915-20) was not achieved, although the hookworm-infection rate of that region did drop by more than half.^[5]

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

• In 1954, Congressional funds were first approved for a Cooperative State-Federal Brucellosis Eradication Program to eliminate the disease from the country. (Brucellosis is a problem mainly in livestock. In 1956, there were 124,000 affected herds found by testing in the US. By 1992, the number had dropped to 700 herds and the number of affected, domestic herds has declined to single digits since then.)
• The CDC Division of TB Elimination has a goal of controlling tuberculosis and eliminating it from the United States by minimizing the likelihood of Mycobacterium tuberculosis transmission, which will prevent the occurrence of new cases.
• The Oral Rabies Vaccine (ORV) Program has a goal of preventing the spread of raccoon variant rabies and eventually eliminating it from the United States.
• There has been an effort for several years to eliminate syphilis from the US.^[6] The rate of infection decreased through the 1990s, and in 2000 it was the lowest since reporting began in 1941, leading the US Surgeon General to issue a plan to eliminate the disease from the country. It has been staging a comeback, however, increasing each year since 2001.

References

1. McFarland, JM, et al “Imported yellow fever in a United States citizen”, Clin Infect Dis, 1997 Nov;25(5):1143-7.
2. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, SMALLPOX FACT SHEET: Smallpox Disease Overview, CDC’s Emergency Preparedness and Response website, (“Page last updated: December 30, 2004”)
3. CDC, “Measles — United States, 2011”, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), April 20, 2012 / 61(15);253-257.
4. CDC, “Notifiable Diseases and Mortality Tables”, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), March 21, 2014 / 63(11);ND-142-ND-155.
5. Bleakley, Hoyt, “Disease and Development: Evidence from Hookworm Eradication in the American South”, Q J Econ. 2007; 122(1): 73–117.
6. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 2010 National STD Prevention Conference. 2010. http://www.cdc.gov/stdconference/2006/media/SEE-fact-sheet.htm. May 9, 2010.