Explain why smallpox was successfully eradicated but rabies probably never will be.

Question

1. Explain why smallpox was successfully eradicated but rabies probably never will be.

2. An advocacy group in Washington, D.D., is petitioning the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to stop the use of low-dosage antimicrobial agents used to enhance the growth of cattle and chickens. Why is the group against this practice?

Thank you :)

Answer 1

1. Rabies is too rare for a wide-spread vaccination program. IOW, if a large number of people were vaccinated against rabies, there would be much more negative vaccine reactions than there would be rabies. B. you would also vaccinate all the other mammal carriers, i.e., bats, rats, etc.

2. I can't speak for the group, but it might be a) worried about developing antibiotic strains of bacteria or b) health effect of humans exposed to low doses of antibiotics.  

Answer 2

1) because there was no animal vector involved in smallpox.  If you immunized the human population, you could eradicate the disease.  There was no pool of infection left elsewhere in the environment to come back and re-infect.    Rabies is endemic to a number of mammalian species in various parts of the world.

2) Because the removal of microbial populations which are susceptible to the antimicrobial agents results in reduced competition for microbes which are resistant to these agents.

Answer 3

1.  Smallpox is a disease that is only carried by humans.  Therefore, if a sufficient number of people are vaccinated, the disease can go away completely.  Rabies, on the other hand, is carried by many different mammals that cannot be vaccinated.  

2.  The widespread use of antibiotics in agriculture increases the rate at which antibiotic resistance spreads.  We will probably always have development of resistance to antibiotics, but the rate of development of resistance, particularly in bacteria which are pathogenic to humans, can be slowed down by the prudent use of the drugs.