Journal of Infectious Diseases
Volume 204 Issue 4 August 15, 2011
http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/toc/jid/current

PERSPECTIVE
David M. Morens, Edward C. Holmes, A. Sally Davis, and Jeffery K. Taubenberger
Global Rinderpest Eradication: Lessons Learned and Why Humans Should Celebrate Too
J Infect Dis. (2011) 204(4): 502-505 doi:10.1093/infdis/jir327

Extract
After more than a decade of effort by the Global Rinderpest Eradication Programme (GREP) of the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), the Organisation mondiale de la santé (Office international des épizooties [OIE]), and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), among others [ 3– 5], the veterinary disease rinderpest ( Figure 1 ) was declared eradicated on 25 May 2011 [ 6]. Since rinderpest virus does not cause human disease, why is this achievement important to humans?

Since at least the Roman era, rinderpest (German for “cattle plague”) has been indirectly responsible for countless human deaths resulting from agricultural losses that led to famine and disease. The Ethiopian poem cited above refers to an African rinderpest panzootic that caused rapid loss of virtually all of the cattle, buffaloes, elands, and wild swine, as well as many sheep, goats, and wildlife species, such as antelopes, gazelles, giraffes, hartebeest, and wildebeest (the “Great Ethiopian Famine” of 1887–1892 [ 2, 7– 11]). Rinderpest virus (RPV) not only infects cattle but also infects >40 other domestic and wild artiodactyl species. It has been credited with decimation of native African wildlife species and even the decline of the European bison.

The Ethiopian tragedy exemplifies the importance of animal disease to humans. Without cattle to plow fields and fertilize crops with dung, the once-fertile Ethiopian lands became a graveyard. Planting and harvesting ceased; vast destruction of the native fauna …