Today, I am thankful for those who bring disease and pestilence to its proper eradication.
Growing up in a Greek family in the 1970s, I learned an important tenet early in my life: Don’t tread on another person’s precious vegetable garden. My family lived in a simple, middle-class home in Bergen County, New Jersey. My devoted aunt and uncle, who were essentially my second set of parents, lived in the house directly behind ours, and my revered grandmother (my “Yia Yia’) resided in our basement. My other uncle and his lovely family lived only a few blocks away—well within walking distance. In essence, I had seven parents, and I knew it. This was never too evident to me than when I was the subject of their admonishments after I was caught tramping in their beloved vegetable gardens in search of my missing Wiffle ball. On more than one occasion, I can recall being chastised by some ‘parent’ for trampling amidst the tomato plants, eggplant stalks, and delicate herbs such as basil and oregano. Admittedly, I found it fascinating how these vegetables grew virtually out of nothing, under the watchful eye and careful attention of these ardent gardeners.
Not surprisingly, as I became an adult and eventually started a family of my own, I gravitated to the idea of having my own garden. So, about a decade ago, I spent a few days in late October building a large vegetable garden, with raised beds, a stone path, and 7-foot walls comprised of wire-mesh fencing. My thinking was simple: If I really wanted to keep animals out of my garden, such as deer, groundhogs, or my own children (inevitably in search of their own missing Wiffle balls), I needed to protect my cherished space from unlawful intrusion. Sadly, what I failed to realize is that is nearly impossible to keep ‘weeds’ out of a vegetable garden.
So, the battle to eradicate those pesky weeds from my perennial vegetable garden has turned into a Sisyphean-like task. Year after year, I fight valiantly to uproot each newly sprouted weed, and each year the weeds return. Interestingly, the word eradication derives from the Latin word eradicare, or ‘torn up by the roots.’ In the world of gardening, the eradication of weeds among the many flowers and trees within a particular bed allows for the remaining flora to thrive with full access to all necessary nutrients and water in the surrounding soil.
Similarly, in the world of infectious diseases, eradication is viewed in a similar vein; that is, the eradication of an infection signifies that the prevalence of the disease in a global host population is reduced to zero. In the history of humanity, only two pathogens have been effectively eliminated from the Earth.
The first disease, a veterinary condition called rinderpest, was a troublesome viral infection in cattle and other ruminants which devastated the agricultural industry for many centuries. Also known as ‘cattle plague’, rinderpest is characterized by fever, diarrhea, and destruction of the lymphatic syndrome, usually a few days after an animal imbibes contaminated water. Sadly, the condition is nearly fatal in all infected animals. Fortunately, a massive vaccination campaign, first started a century ago, helped to curtail the disease to the point of near extinction by the start of the 21st Century. After seven years of no confirmed cases, the disease was declared by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) as officially eradicated this week a decade ago (October 2010). Although extremely detrimental to the farmers, rinderpest did not cause clinical disease in humans, and, thus, the public notice of eradication barely caught the national airwaves.
However, the only other infectious pathogen that has been eradicated – small pox – was a notable achievement heralded by the world. For many centuries, especially during the 16th through the 18th Century, smallpox outbreak routinely leading to the death of up to 10-20% of the population. Thanks to the efforts of Dr. Edward Jenner, vaccination first with cowpox, and then with vaccinia, replaced the more savage practice of variolation. Yet, even by the beginning of the 20th Century, more than 100 years after Jenner’s discovery of a vaccine, small pox remained a global scourge. In fact, in the early 1900s, an average of ~50,000 smallpox cases would occur each year in the US. Following a worldwide campaign, small pox was gradually eliminated in different parts of the world, first in North America (1952), followed by South America (1971), Asia (1975), and finally Africa (1977). In fact, on this exact day (Oct 26) in 1977, the last natural case of smallpox was reported in a cook/health care worker in Somalia. After an aggressive ring vaccination campaign of all his social contacts, no further cases were identified.
In essence, we revel today in the extraordinary story of the most successful cause for vaccination – the eradication of small pox. Fortunately, small pox will soon not be alone on the list of microbial diseases eradicated from humanity. Disease such as polio, Guinea worm disease, and yaws are approaching the final phases of elimination. One by one, the infectious weeds in the garden of life are being pulled out from their roots.
My hope is that the day will come that my own vegetable garden will be devoid of any weeds, and nothing further will remain except for the fruits (and vegetables) of my hard-earned labor – and perhaps a few errant Wiffle balls.
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