What is the difference between cured and eradicated in Pandemic?
A cured disease still spreads, but Treat Disease removes all its cubes from a city at once. A disease is eradicated when it's cured and its last cube leaves the board. Then its cities are never infected again.
The rule:
In Pandemic, a cured disease keeps spreading but Treat Disease clears all of its cubes from a city at once, while an eradicated disease is cured and has no cubes left on the board, so its cities are never infected again.
| Cured | Eradicated | |
|---|---|---|
| How | Discover a Cure | Cured, and no cubes of that color left on the board |
| Treat Disease | Removes all cubes of that color in the city | Nothing left to treat |
| New infections | Still placed | Never placed again |
Flip the cure marker to its eradicated side when a disease is eradicated.
Removing the last cube of an uncured disease does nothing special.
Medic exception: once a disease is cured, the Medic removes its cubes from his city automatically (no action needed), and no new cubes or outbreaks of that disease can be placed there while he’s in it.
Example:
Red is cured, and the last 3 red cubes are all in one city. Ben treats red there and removes all 3 with a single action. Red is now eradicated, so later red Infection cards are simply discarded.
Why players argue about it:
Players think curing stops a disease from spreading. Only eradication does. You also don't need to eradicate anything to win.