Update: International Task Force for Disease Eradication, 1990 and 1991.

In 1988, a decade after the successful eradication of smallpox, the International Task Force for Disease Eradication (ITFDE) was formed to systematically evaluate the potential for global eradicability of candidate diseases, identify specific barriers to their eradication that might be surmountable, and promote eradication efforts. In its first two meetings in April and October 1989, the ITFDE determined that two of eight diseases examined were eradicable and three others were candidates for elimination of transmission or clinical symptoms (1). In its third and fourth meetings in August 1990 and June 1991, the ITFDE evaluated the potential eradicability of seven other diseases. This report summarizes the results of the third and fourth meetings.