Health Programs

The Carter Center International Task Force for Disease Eradication
 
Inspired by the successful eradication of smallpox in 1977, the International Task Force for Disease Eradication formed at The Carter Center in 1988 to evaluate disease control and prevention and the potential for eradicating other infectious diseases. Composed of scientists and notable international health organizations from around the world, the task force met from 1988 to 1992, concluding then that six diseases — dracunculiasis, poliomyelitis, mumps, rubella, lymphatic filariasis, and cysticercosis — could be eradicated. (See list of eradication and elimination programs currently sanctioned by the World Health Organization.) 
 
In June 2001, the task force reconvened to work further on international health with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The main goals of the revived task force are to review progress in the field of disease eradication, review the status of selected diseases for control or eradication, and make recommendations regarding opportunities for eradication or better control of certain diseases.
 
Carter Center health programs address five of the diseases currently identified by the ITFDE for eradication or better control: dracunculiasis (Guinea worm disease), lymphatic filariasis, onchocerciasis (river blindness), trachoma, and schistosomiasis.


Read more about efforts to control or eradicate these diseases.


Read the report from the May 12, 2006 meeting of the ITFDE (PDF).