Rinderpest, or cattle plague eradicated!

Ending the plague, improving lives (from FAO Featured stories)

Rinderpest, or cattle plague, is about to make history as the first animal disease to be eliminated thanks to human efforts, and only the second disease of any kind, after smallpox in humans. On June 28, during the 37th FAO Conference, the 192 Member countries of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) will adopt a Resolution declaring global freedom from rinderpest.

Like most people, dairy farmer Ajith Habarakada has never seen a case of rinderpest, the ancient animal virus that, worldwide, has wiped out countless herds of cattle and other hoofed animals, both domesticated and wild.

Still, Habarakada has no doubt what an outbreak of the disease would mean for him and his family.

"If our animals were destroyed by disease, it would be a catastrophe," he says.

Rinderpest is arguably the deadliest animal virus in history. Although it is not known to infect humans, for many centuries massive losses to livestock have been blamed for economic ruin, famine and even the weakening of the Roman Empire.

Historical accounts suggest that rinderpest originated in the steppes of central Eurasia, later sweeping across Europe and Asia with military campaigns and livestock imports.

In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the disease devastated parts of Africa. Rinderpest also appeared briefly in Brazil and Australia with imported animals, but was quickly eliminated.

In Sri Lanka, livestock imports triggered three major epidemics between 1926 and 1994, according to the national department of animal production and health.

The symptoms of the illness were so acute that "when rinderpest was wiping out many animals in many countries, it was described by farmers as a disease which caused animals to cry, purge and die," said Dr Ranjani Hettiarachchi, a veterinarian and deputy director of the animal health division in the same department.

At age 54, Habarakada is counting on his children to help him to carry on the traditional dairy farming practices that he learned from his own parents.

From his cattle stalls in the Padukka region of Sri Lanka, he watches as his son Tharanga hoists containers of fresh milk into a three-wheeled motor vehicle, gets behind the steering wheel, and rumbles away to a milk processing centre.

"My son is quite interested and it is with his help that we are continuing to develop the farm," says Habarakada. "We have 10 cows, of which four are milking cows."

The family farm recently became one of the last proving grounds in a historic, global campaign to eradicate rinderpest from all but a few laboratory samples worldwide.

A team of veterinary investigators showed up, equipped with syringes, paper notebooks and satellite-supported mapping devices. Donning white jackets, they examined the animals and drew blood samples to take back to a laboratory in Welisara.

Roughly 4 500 head of cattle in Sri Lanka underwent blood testing in 2010 under the UN Food and Agriculture Organization's Global Rinderpest Eradication Programme (GREP), created in 1994 and charged with coordinating international efforts to eliminate the transboundary disease.

In a European Union-funded phase of the programme, field and laboratory personnel gathered the final scientific evidence needed from Sri Lanka and a handful of other countries to confirm that the world was free of the disease.

Sri Lanka has not reported a case of rinderpest since 1994 and worldwide, no one has confirmed a case of the disease since 2001 (in Kenya). For some time now, the disease has disappeared from the wild.

Countries awaiting confirmation of their disease-free claims have all submitted their reports to the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) – a necessary step before FAO, OIE and its partners make history by declaring rinderpest globally eradicated.

Following recognition by the OIE in May 2011, FAO's governing Conference will adopt a resolution in June 2011 declaring the global eradication of rinderpest.

The successful fight against rinderpest underscores what can be achieved when communities, countries and institutions work together. After decades of efforts to stamp out a disease that kept crossing national borders, countries and institutions agreed they needed to coordinate their efforts under a single, cohesive programme.

The rinderpest eradication programme is part of FAO's larger Emergency Prevention System for Transboundary Animal and Plant Pests and Diseases (EMPRES). Together with OIE, FAO has coordinated the work of a vast cadre of partner institutions, including the International Atomic Energy Agency, regional organizations such as the African Union's Interafrican Bureau for Animal Resources, donors, national governments, and communities.

"As an international community, we simply couldn't afford not to win this campaign against rinderpest," said Juan Lubroth, virologist, epidemiologist and Chief of FAO's Animal Health Service. "With so many factors working against human livelihoods, especially in developing countries – a burgeoning world population, strained economies and climate change – this was something that we knew could be done to improve lives.

"We had an effective vaccine and people in many countries who were determined to help," Lubroth continued. "But we were dealing with a transboundary disease that was affecting both domesticated animals and wildlife. We were not going to be able to eradicate the disease if we didn't work together, regionally and worldwide. And we've done it."

Habarakada, the dairy farmer in Padukka, is glad to have done his part to support the eradication of rinderpest. "It would be a great thing if the disease were truly eradicated," he said.