Article

2011-05-25 International-UN-NGOs

Devastating cattle disease eradicated (rinderpest)

A DEVASTATING cattle disease known as rinderpest has been eradicated, an unprecedented achievement, the world monitor for trade in farm animals has declared. Viciously contagious and often fatal, the rinderpest virus is also known as cattle plague. It has been a curse to livestock farmers throughout the ages, often contributing to famines that in turn have fuelled turbulence and war. Its eradication - the result of a decades-long campaign of vaccination and disease surveillance - was approved today to loud applause at a long-expected ceremony at the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE).
Which isn't part of the UN.
Fourteen countries were the last on the list of nations to be certified rinderpest-free. Veterinarians liken the achievement to the stamping out of smallpox, certified in 1979.

"It's a very proud moment in the history of our profession," said Bill Taylor, who gave a report on the final stages of the eradication campaign, led by the OIE and the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO)
who did their part by racking up expenses in 5 star hotels and restaurants..

Posted by phil_b 2011-05-25 07:10|| || Front Page|| [6 views ] Top

#1 I think they had a half a dozen false starts to the eradication of smallpox in the wild.

Rinderpest is closely related to distemper, and human measles is directly descended from it.

From 1889-1897 a rinderpest plague swept through the African continent killing virtually all the cattle and wild ungulates. This had a major impact in the Boer War, as though the Boer's horses had been exposed to rinderpest, the English horses had not, so died as soon as they arrived in country, thus crippling their campaign.

The problem was somewhat alleviated with the import of more resistant horses from New South Wales, Australia, that were referred to as "Walers", by Rudyard Kipling.

The disease was originally introduced into Africa with the conclusion of a long running war between British ruled Egypt and Ethiopia, in which, after the British made a peace treaty with Ethiopia (1884), they turned over some development projects to the Italians, who then imported rinderpest infected cattle from Asia.

This resulted in the loss of 90% of Ethiopian farm animals, along with a drought, resulted in a massive famine in Ethiopia. In turn, smallpox, typhus, cholera and influenza epidemics decimated the human population.

The famine was so great that the Emperor turned out the nobility to boost public morale and show how to hoe fields by hand instead of with oxen. He opened his palace grounds to mass feedings of imported food, paid for out of his own wealth.

Before then, even though rinderpest was endemic to continental Europe, except for Britain, it had also been to a great extent eradicated in Italy, due to the response by the Pope to a vicious outbreak in the 18th Century that had wiped out most European cattle, and the prized Papal herd of cattle.

According to a Dr. Lancisi, chief physician to the Pope, the disease was contagious and he recommended slaughter and restricted movement of cattle.

The penalties for transgressors were drastic; guilty laymen were hung, drawn and quartered and guilty ecclesiastics were sent to the galleys. The Papal edicts were not popular but their application rid Romagna and parts south of rinderpest.

Elsewhere in Europe rinderpest frequently broke into point epidemics by a continuum of wars, resulting in a loss of livestock disease containment.

It had such a reputation for altering the course of war that it was one of the primary biological weapons still in development before they were outlawed by treaty in the 1970s.

Posted by Anonymoose 2011-05-25 11:02|| 2011-05-25 11:02|| Front Page Top

#2 I am happy to hear that this nasty pest is gone.

Posted by DarthVader 2011-05-25 11:37|| 2011-05-25 11:37|| Front Page Top

#3 If they really did eradicate rinderpest then they deserve a good five-star meal.

Posted by Steve White 2011-05-25 11:53|| 2011-05-25 11:53|| Front Page Top

#4 "It had such a reputation for altering the course of war that it was one of the primary biological weapons still in development before they were outlawed by treaty in the 1970s."

So no need to get nostalgic, as there is still plenty of the bacteria left in the world's secret bio-weapons labs.

Posted by Iblis 2011-05-25 14:01|| 2011-05-25 14:01|| Front Page Top

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