It seems that this is a subject of debate among experts. From what I understand, the disagreement is over when we can say that a reduction in cases to zero is "

It seems that this is a subject of debate among experts. From what I understand, the disagreement is over when we can say that a reduction in cases to zero is "permanent" if animal reservoirs still exist. > To date, the World Health Organization (WHO) has declared only 2 diseases officially eradicated: smallpox caused by variola virus (VARV) and rinderpest caused by the rinderpest virus (RPV). > Although successful containment strategies eliminated transmission of SARS among people, the continued presence of an animal reservoir means that SARS is not yet an eradicated disease. https://asm.org/Articles/2020/March/Disease-Eradication-What-Does-It-Take-to-Wipe-out https://asm.org/Articles/2020/March/Disease-Eradication-What... > ... the 2003 SARS epidemic was permanently reduced to zero as a result of deliberate efforts, requiring no further intervention methods. This is precisely the definition of eradication. https://biomedgrid.com/pdf/AJBSR.MS.ID.001017.pdf https://biomedgrid.com/pdf/AJBSR.MS.ID.001017.pdf