Not really the beginning, but hopefully another big step. The USA was declared Malaria free in 1949 after a specific elimination project - it seems the CDC actually evolved from the Office of Malaria Control in War Areas, established in 1942.
And now there are more and more cases of Dengue and W. Nile and Yellow Fever in the US, mostly because the CDC stopped doing national mosquito control and its near powerless to resume that since NIMBY is more important than not catching tropical diseases apparently.
Flu is practically impossible to eradicate at current technology levels because we don't have many defences against it and there is a large natural reservoir in wild birds.
