| Haha, I'm getting downvoted too, so I guess it wasn't because you didn't provide a source. Oh well, love to hear anybody with a counter-argument. Is there something I missed? It's hard to eliminate a virus that hides in reservoirs. > "Practical disease control requires answers to two questions: 1) Can an acceptable level of control be accomplished without consideration of a reservoir? 2) If not, what populations constitute the reservoir? " > "Given a target-reservoir system, policies to manage infection may contain elements of three broadly different tactics: 1) target control: directing efforts within the target population with no reference to the reservoir (e.g., human vaccination against yellow fever [23]); 2) blocking tactics: directing control efforts at blocking transmission between source and target populations (e.g., game fences to control FMDV in cattle); and 3) reservoir control: controlling infection within the reservoir (e.g., culling programs, vaccination, or treatment of reservoirs)." > "These three approaches require progressively increased levels of understanding of reservoir structure and function." Haydon DT, Cleaveland S, Taylor LH, Laurenson MK. Identifying reservoirs of infection: a conceptual and practical challenge. Emerg Infect Dis. 2002;8(12):1468-1473. doi:10.3201/eid0812.010317 Coronaviruses have a lot of reservoirs. Shi Z, Hu Z. A review of studies on animal reservoirs of the SARS coronavirus. Virus Res. 2008;133(1):74-87. doi:10.1016/j.virusres.2007.03.012 Scope of the question was whether or not it is possible to eliminate the virus entirely a la efforts with poliovirus. I looked at the literature, and cited it. Doesn't seem possible at the moment, unless we decide to make all of the confirmed and theoretical animal reservoirs extinct (e.g. kill ALL pet cats and dogs). Doesn't mean you can't vaccinate people so they don't catch it. |