International Task Force for Disease Eradication – In The News

August 2022
Stephen Blount Obituary (PDF)
Published by the Lancet
The renowned public health specialist, who contributed to innumerable fights against infectious diseases, died on April 30, 2022. Steve was the former director of the Carter Center’s Special Health Projects, leading the Hispaniola Initiative, which seeks to eliminate malaria and lymphatic filariasis from Haiti and the Dominican Republic, and the Public Health Training Initiative, which provides training in maternal and child health for health workers in developing countries.

Sept. 10, 2021
America vs. Smallpox: How Vaccines Saved The Nation • Puppet History (VIDEO)
Published by Watcher YouTube.
Scabs n Pus infect Puppet History as the Professor talks smallpox during the American Revolution. This video includes a reference to Dr. Donald Hopkins at 3:58.

July 30, 2021
Summary of the 32nd meeting of the International Task Force for Disease Eradication, 4–5 May 2021
Published by WHO’s Weekly Epidemiology Record, 2021, 96, 329–352.
The ITFDE convened virtually to discuss “Hispaniola update – progress towards eliminating malaria and lymphatic filariasis in Haiti and the Dominican Republic, 2008 to 2020”. The Task Force declared in 2006 that eliminating malaria and lymphatic filariasis (LF) from the island of Hispaniola was “technically feasible, medically desirable, and would be economically advantageous”. The present meeting reviewed the substantial progress made towards eliminating both diseases from Haiti and the Dominican Republic and considered the steps required to meet the goal.

Jan. 15, 2021
Summary of the 31st meeting of the International Task Force for Disease Eradication, 20–21 October 2020
Published by WHO’s Weekly Epidemiology Record, 2021, 96, 1-12.
The ITFDE discussed, “the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on eradication/elimination programmes and the way forward.” The COVID-19 pandemic is having a devastating effect on our fragile planet, especially on vulnerable populations. This meeting addressed the pandemic’s impact on 2 global eradication programmes and 5 global elimination efforts.

Feb. 17, 2020
Report of the Thirtieth Meeting of the International Task Force for Disease Eradication
The 30th Meeting of the International Task Force for Disease Eradication (ITFDE) was convened at The Carter Center in Atlanta, Ga., U.S.A., on 22 October 2019 to discuss the potential for eradication of measles and rubella.

April 26, 2019
Report of the Twenty-Ninth Meeting of the International Task Force for Disease Eradication
Published by World Health Organization.
The 29th meeting of the International Task Force for Disease Eradication (ITFDE) was convened at The Carter Center, Atlanta, Ga., U.S.A., on 15 January 2019 to discuss the strengths and limitations of official validation of disease elimination as a public health problem (EPHP).

May 9, 2018
New Initiative Will Drive Atlanta’s Reputation as the Center for Global Health
Published by Global Health ATL.
The Metro Atlanta Chamber, Georgia Global Health Alliance and Deloitte announced the launch of Global Health ATL. The initiative’s priorities are to create a health innovation hub in the heart of metro Atlanta and drive impact in areas such as disease eradication, economic development and disaster response.

May 8, 2018
Be Thankful You Were Born After the Smallpox Vaccine
Published by Vox.
A conversation with Dr. William Foege, one of the architects of the campaign that wiped out smallpox.

Feb. 12, 2018
The Shadow Crusade to End Measles
Published by Wired.com.
A crusade to eradicate measles would save 22 million lives by 2030. But to succeed, we might need to learn how to eradicate other diseases – such as polio, river blindness, and Guinea worm – first.

Jan. 26, 2018
Meeting of the International Task Force for Disease Eradication, October 2017
Published by Weekly Epidemiology Record, 2018, 93, 33-44.
During January–September 2017, 13 laboratory-confirmed cases of guinea-worm disease were reported provisionally: 12 cases in Chad, and 1 case in Ethiopia, where a small outbreak occurred at the end of September.

Oct. 2, 2017
Former President Jimmy Carter Chosen as 2017 Prix Galien Pro Bono Humanum Honoree
Published by PR Newswire.
The Galien Awards Committee announced today that former U.S. President Jimmy Carter will receive the 2017 Pro Bono Humanum Award at the 11th annual Prix Galien USA Awards Ceremony, to be held on Thursday, October 26, at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.

Sept. 15, 2017
Meeting of the International Task Force for Disease Eradication (PDF)
Published by Weekly Epidemiological Record, 2017, 92, 537–556.
The 26th meeting of the International Task Force for Disease Eradication (ITFDE) was convened at The Carter Center on June 20, 2017, to discuss the World Health Organization goals for the elimination of hepatitis B infection (HBV) and hepatitis C infection (HCV) as public health threats.

Aug. 23, 2017
Dr. Donald Hopkins Helped Wipe Smallpox from the Planet. He Won’t Rest Until He’s Done the Same for Guinea Worm Disease.
Published by Atlanta magazine.
At an open-air hospital in northern Ghana, Donald Hopkins watched a small girl endure a medical ordeal unseen in the United States.

July 6, 2017
Fighting a Flesh-Eating Bacteria
Published by The New York Times.
Aneri Pattani, a freshly minted graduate of Northeastern University, is the winner of Nicholas Kristof’s annual win-a-trip contest. In this article, she details the presence of Buruli ulcer in Liberia through interviews with Buruli patients and clincians, like The Carter Center’s Dr. Stephen Blount.

Jan. 7, 2016
Smallpox and Dracunculiasis: the Scientific Value of Infectious Diseases That Have Been Eradicated or Targeted for Eradication. Is Schistosomiasis Next? (PDF)
Published by PLOS Pathogens.
Only one human disease has been completely eradicated: smallpox. A second, Dracunculiasis, is on the way out. The authors examine the feasibility of targeting schistosomiasis for eradication.

Oct. 6, 2015
What Makes a Disease Eradicable
Published by The Economist.
Guinea worm and polio are the only targets currently sanctioned for global eradication by the World Health Organization. The International Task Force for Disease Eradication, a group of scientists and health experts established in 1988 by the Carter Center, reckons the list should include six more.

July 31, 2015
Meeting of the International Task Force for Disease Eradication, April 2015
Published by Weekly Epidemiological Record, 2015, 90, 381–392. 
The 23rd meeting of the International Task Force for Disease Eradication (ITFDE) was convened at the Carter Center, Atlanta, GA, USA, on 28 April 2015 to discuss the global campaign to eradicate Guinea worm disease (dracunculiasis). The ITFDE reviewed the status of the global Guinea Worm Eradication Program twice previously, in 2003 and 2008.

May 29, 2015
Is Measles Next?
Published by Science Magazine.
Measles is the most contagious virus on earth, infecting virtually everyone who is not vaccinated. Symptoms normally begin with a cough, runny nose, inflamed eyes, a sore throat, and a slight fever. Days later, the distinctive rash erupts on the face, arms, and legs. But more than half of the estimated 10 million people infected with measles fare far worse.

April 11, 2014
Oral Antibiotic Raises Hopes of Eradicating Yaws (PDF)
Published by Science magazine, Vol. 334.
At a meeting in the World Health Organization's Geneva headquarters last month, researchers reported preliminary results from four pilot projects suggesting that the disease might be vanquished by simply giving all vulnerable populations a single dose of an oral antibiotic, repeated if necessary. But several tropical disease experts are cautious. "Inadequate surveillance is the most serious pitfall that could jeopardize the whole campaign," warns Donald Hopkins of the Carter Center, who chairs the International Task Force for Disease Eradication and has led the guinea worm eradication effort since 1986. Many countries where yaws is endemic do not track cases.

April 11, 2014
Meeting of the International Task Force for Disease Eradication (PDF)
Published by Weekly Epidemiological Record, 2014, 89, 153–160. 
The 22nd meeting of the International Task Force for Disease Eradication (ITFDE) was convened at The Carter Center on Jan. 14, 2014, to discuss the elimination of onchocerciasis and lymphatic filariasis (LF) in Africa.

Oct. 4, 2013
Meeting of the International Task Force for Disease Eradication (PDF)
Published by Weekly Epidemiological Record, 2013, 88, 429–436. 
The 21st meeting of the International Task Force for Disease Eradication (ITFDE) was convened at The Carter Center on 10 July 2013 to discuss (i) the current status of progress towards elimination of cysticercosis/taeniasis and (ii) the control of meningococcal meningitis.

July 31, 2013
Last Person To Get Smallpox Dedicated His Life To Ending Polio
Published by NPR.
So far, the human race has eliminated just one disease in history: smallpox. But it's on the cusp of adding a second virus - polio - to that list.

July 25, 2013
Watch "The Eradicator: Donald Hopkins - A Lifetime Spent Working to Eradicate Deadly Diseases"
Published by the Harvard School of Public Health.
Donald Hopkins, MPH '70, and currently a vice president at the Carter Center, has spent a career helping to eradicate two major tropical diseases. Beginning in the 1960s he helped lead efforts to vaccinate people in Africa and Asia against smallpox, a disease that was declared eradicated in 1980. In the 1980s, he started the Guinea Worm Disease Eradication Program at the Centers for Disease Control and in 1987 joined the Carter Center. Hopkins has spent the last three decades working to eradicate Guinea worm disease, which in 1986 affected some 3.5 million people. At the beginning of 2013, there were fewer than 600 cases left in the world.

May 30, 2013
Harvard Awards 9 Honorary Degrees
Published by the Harvard Gazette.
As an African-American growing up during segregation, Donald R. Hopkins determined, as he once put it, "to show the world what I could do." And while Hopkins achieved his childhood dream of becoming a doctor, he more than lived up to his initial promise. In fighting for the eradication of both smallpox and Guinea worm disease - two of the 20th century's most horrific diseases - he has helped save the lives of and prevent the suffering of millions.

May 30, 2013
Abreu, Menino, Pagels, and Oprah: The Honorands
Published by Harvard Magazine.
Donald R. Hopkins, a graduate of Morehouse College, earned his medical degree from the University of Chicago and his master's in public health from Harvard. During two decades at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, he served as deputy director (1984-1987) and acting director (1985); he has been an assistant professor of tropical public health at the Harvard School of Public Health (which recognized him with its 2012 Alumni Award of Merit), and directed the program to eradicate smallpox and control measles in Sierra Leone from 1967 to 1969. At the Carter Center, which he joined in 1987, he oversees international health and mental-health programs in Africa and Latin America. Previously he directed its efforts to eradicate Guinea worm disease and river blindness - work for which he won a MacArthur Fellowship in 1995 (he now serves on that foundation's board of directors).

May 9, 2013
Global Health Author Q&A: Carter Center's Donald Hopkins
Published by the New England Journal of Medicine blog "Now @ NEJM."
Carter Center Vice President, Dr. Donald R. Hopkins answers questions about global health following his New England Journal of Medicine article, "Disease Eradication."

Feb. 15, 2013
Meeting of the International Task Force for Disease Eradication, November 2012 (PDF)
Published by the Weekly Epidemiological Record, 2013, 88, 73–80.
The 20th Meeting of the International Task Force for Disease Eradication (ITFDE) was convened at the Carter Center, Atlanta, Ga. (United States), on Nov. 27, 2012 to discuss the potential eradicability of yaws and receive an update on progress towards elimination of malaria and lymphatic filariasis from Hispaniola.

Nov. 1, 2012
Yaws Eradication: Facing Old Problems, Raising New Hopes (PDF)
Published by PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases, Vol. 6, Issue 11, e1837.
One cannot help but recalling that the most advanced eradication programme, targeting Guinea worm (dracunculiasis), is basically in the hands of the Carter Center in Atlanta (United States), which recently received $40 million in donations from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to complete its job. In 2011, cases of Guinea worm disease occurred in three remaining endemic nations - South Sudan, Mali, and Ethiopia - and in Chad, where there was an isolated outbreak.

Aug. 17, 2012
Meeting of the International Task Force for Disease Eradication, April 2012 (PDF)
Published by Weekly Epidemiological Record, 2012, 87, 305–316. 
The 19th Meeting of the International Task Force for Disease Eradication (ITFDE) was convened at the Carter Center, Atlanta, Ga. (United States), on April 12, 2012, to discuss the potential eradicability of schistosomiasis.

April 19, 2012
Mosquito-borne Diseases Under Attack in Haiti, Dominican Republic
Published by the Emory Report.
Efforts to eliminate two mosquito-borne diseases – malaria and lymphatic filariasis – in Haiti and the Dominican Republic are ongoing, with the first of four meetings on the issue this year held in Santo Domingo in March.

29 de marzo 2012
RD y Haití evalúan acciones contra malaria y filariasis linfática
Published by Diario Libre.
Los ministerios de Salud de la República Dominicana y Haití iniciaron hoy una reunión de dos días para pasar balance a la ejecución del plan común para la erradicación de la malaria y la filariasis linfática en la Isla la Española, que comparten ambos países, informaron fuentes locales.

Aug. 5, 2011
Meeting of the International Task Force for Disease Eradication, April 2011 (PDF)
Published by Weekly Epidemiological Record, 2011, 86, 341–352.

The 18th meeting of the International Task Force for Disease Eradication was convened at the Carter Center, Atlanta, Ga., United States, on April 6, 2011, to discuss the control and possible elimination of onchocerciasis and lymphatic filariasis in Africa.

May 14, 2010
Elimination Meets Reality in Hispaniola (PDF)
Published by Science magazine.
There is absolutely no reason for malaria to persist on the island of Hispaniola, says Donald Hopkins, longtime disease fighter and vice president for health programs at the Carter Center in Atlanta. All the other islands in the Caribbean have rid themselves of this mosquito-borne disease. And the Dominican Republic (D.R.), which shares the island with Haiti, has driven cases to remarkably low levels. Related video: Two Countries, Two Diseases, One Island >

May 14, 2010
Shrinking the Malaria Map From the Outside In (PDF)
Published by Science magazine.
Richard Feachem wants to "shrink the malaria map." By that, he and his Global Health Group at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), mean wiping out malaria at its "natural margins"-those countries on the edge of malaria transmission where the disease has just a tentative foothold-and working inward. It's going for the "low-hanging fruit," he says. "It's a no-brainer."

March 30, 2010
A Project for Haiti: The Eradication of Two Diseases
Published by The New York Times.
This letter to the editor of the New York Times by Carter Center Vice President for Health Programs Dr. Donald R. Hopkins was published March 30, 2010, in response to the March 28, 2010 editorial "Making Haiti Whole." Two projects that the donors conference on Haiti should consider this week are the binational plan that Haiti and the Dominican Republic announced last October to eliminate malaria by 2020, and the plan that Haiti announced simultaneously to eliminate lymphatic filariasis (elephantiasis) by 2020 (the Dominican Republic expects to eliminate lymphatic filariasis this year).

March 19, 2010
Meeting of the International Task Force for Disease Eradication, January 2010 (PDF)
Published by Weekly Epidemiological Record, 2010, 85, 109–116.
The sixteen meeting of the International Task Force for Disease Eradication convened at the Carter Center, Atlanta, Ga., on Jan. 12, 2010 to discuss tuberculosis.

Feb. 12, 2010
Meeting of the International Task Force for Disease Eradication, October 2009 (PDF)
Published by Weekly Epidemiological Record, 2010, 85, 49–56.
The 15th meeting of the International Task Force for Disease Eradication convened at the Carter Center in Atlanta, Ga, on Oct. 30, 2009 to discuss rotavirus infection.

Jan. 5, 2010
Haiti, Dominican Republic Combine Efforts to Eradicate Malaria
Published by World Focus.
World Focus video report on the fight against malaria in Hispaniola: a new cooperative effort between the two countries and U.S. President Jimmy Carter to eradicate the disease. Distributed to PBS stations nationwide.

Dec. 9, 2009
Carter Center Works to Eradicate Malaria in Haiti, Dominican Republic
Published by Voice of America.
Haiti and the Dominican Republic are the last two countries in the Caribbean region with known cases of malaria, and former U.S. President Jimmy Carter says he hopes to see an eventual eradication of the disease in both countries. VOA spoke recently with the former president and to members of his Carter Center staff in Atlanta, Georgia about their efforts to curb the mosquito-borne illness.

Nov. 19, 2009
Q&A: Jimmy Carter on Eliminating Malaria
Published by Vanity Fair.
As President Obama and Congress work to overhaul American health care, Jimmy Carter is continuing his quest to fight diseases in some of the most neglected regions of the globe. Carter turned 85 in October; to celebrate, he flew to Hispaniola with his wife, Rosalynn, to check in on the Carter Center's efforts to eliminate malaria in Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

Oct. 29, 2009
President Carter Calls for Partnership in Hispaniola (PDF)
Published by Global Health Magazine.
In 2006, the International Task Force on Disease Eradication determined that elimination of malaria in Hispaniola is technically possible. While there was desire in the Dominican Republic and Haiti to move forward on a bi-national scale, help from the international community was needed to launch the project. The Carter Center offered its support and in 2008 provided $200,000 in seed money for a pilot project to support bi-national work to eliminate malaria and, to a lesser extent, lymphatic filariasis on Hispaniola.

Oct. 9, 2009
Haïti-Rép. Dominicaine: Carter applaudit la bonne disposition des deux pays à lutter contre la malaria et la filariose
Published by Alter Presse.
L'ex président américain James Carter a salué la bonne disposition manifestée par les autorités haïtiennes et dominicaines vis-à-vis de la lutte conjointe qu'ils devront mener contre la malaria et la filariose durant les 10 prochaines années.

Oct. 8, 2009
Hispaniola Leaders Aim to Eradicate Malaria
Published by the Associated Press.
The leaders of Haiti and the Dominican Republic agreed Thursday to cooperate in a campaign aimed at eradicating the last vestiges of malaria from the islands of the Caribbean by 2020.

Oct. 7, 2009
Carter Seeks To Boost Caribbean Malaria Fight: Ex-President Carter Seeks To Boost Campaign To Rid Hispaniola Of Malaria
Published by the Associated Press.
Jovind Fritzner is well-know in this border town, where the ditches lining the dirt roads collect stagnant water perfect for malaria-carrying mosquitoes.

Dec. 16, 2008
Haiti and Dominican Republic Urged to Fight Mosquito Illnesses Together
Published by The New York Times.
The Carter Center has called for a joint effort to eliminate two mosquito-borne diseases, malaria and lymphatic filariasis, from their last foothold in the Caribbean: the island of Hispaniola.

Nov. 28, 2008
Meeting of the International Task Force for Disease Eradication, May 2008 (PDF)
Published by Weekly Epidemiological Record, 2008, 83, 429–440.
The 12th meeting of the International Task Force for Disease Eradication was convened at the Carter Center on May 6, 2008.

Jan. 26, 2007
Meeting of the International Task Force for Disease Eradication - May 2006 (PDF)
Published by Weekly Epidemiological Record, 2007, 82, 25–32.
The ninth meeting of the International Task Force for Disease Eradication was convened at the Carter Center on May 12, 2006. The task force reviewed the status of malaria control in 3 countries in the Region of the Americas.

March 20, 2006
New York Times Feature Article: To Conquer, or Control? Disease Strategy Debated (PDF)
Published by The New York Times.
An overview on disease eradication, written by Donald G. McNeil Jr. and Ceila W. Dugger.

Dec. 31, 1993
Recommendations of the International Task Force for Disease Eradication (PDF)
Published by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, Vol. 42,No. RR-16.
This report summarizes the conclusions of the International Task Force for Disease Eradication (ITFDE), a group of scientists who were convened by a secretariat at the Carter Center of Emory University six times during 1989–1992. The purpose of the ITFDE was to establish criteria and apply them systematically to evaluate the potential eradicability of other diseases in the aftermath of the Smallpox Eradication Program.