system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Smallpox is officially eradicated, and IIRC, even the lab samples have now been destroyed. Are we "getting close" with anything else -- specifically, polio and tuberculosis?

I can't recall the last time I heard about a case of polio; and I'd say the same about TB but there are adverts on TV that warn about TB as a side effect -- which is a completely separate question.

I also know that malaria programs are making good progress, but they're a long way from "eradication in the wild".

Thanks!
gpt
The Smallpox virus samples **have not** been destroyed:

Since 1984, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the United States and the State Research Center of Virology and Biotechnology VECTOR in Koltsovo, Russia are the only two labs authorized by the WHO to hold stocks of live smallpox virus.

In 1986, the WHO first recommended destruction of all Smallpox samples, and later set the date of destruction to be 30 December 1993. This was postponed to 30 June 1999, then again to 30 June 2002. Due to resistance from the U.S. and Russia, in 2002 the World Health Assembly agreed to permit temporary retention of the virus stocks for specific research purposes.  

A 2010 review by a team of public health experts appointed by the WHO concluded that no essential public health purpose is served by the American and Russian laboratories continuing to retain live virus stocks.    The stocks still exist in 2021.