“Only eradication I think has happened is to small pox.”
I could very well be wrong — but I think I remember reading a few months back that there are still a few isolated cases of smallpox that crop up occasionally. If what I read was accurate, wouldn’t that mean that it hasn’t been totally eradicated?
A very scary thought is that some asinine terrorist may find a way to smuggle a vial out of the lab (IIRC, it’s only stored in one lab in the U.S. and one lab in Russia). If that were to ever happen, God help us.
Did they eradicate Cowpox? Having this virus tended to confer protection from Smallpox. If they are this close as viruses, could Cowpox mutations be selected over multiple generations to become as destructive?