Rinderpest: the veterinary perspective on eradication

Rinderpest was a devastating disease of livestock responsible for continent-wide famine and poverty. Centuries of veterinary advances culminated in 2011 with the UN Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Organization for Animal Health declaring global eradication of rinderpest; only the second disease to be eradicated and the greatest veterinary achievement of our time. Conventional control measures, principally mass vaccination combined with zoosanitary procedures, led to substantial declines in the incidence of rinderpest. However, during the past decades, innovative strategies were deployed for the last mile to overcome diagnostic and surveillance challenges, unanticipated variations in virus pathogenicity, circulation of disease in wildlife populations and to service remote and nomadic communities in often-unstable states. This review provides an overview of these challenges, describes how they were overcome and identifies key factors for this success

Bovine ephemeral fever: a review

Ephemeral fever is a viral disease of cattle and water buffalo. The more spectacular epidemics of the disease have occurred in subtropical and temperate regions of Africa, Asia and Australia. However, the virus has its home essentially in the tropics. The clinical effects and epidemiology of the disease have been better studied in the fringe regions than in its heartland. Without a much deeper study of the ecology of ephemeral fever in the tropics the benefits of control measures cannot be demonstrated for the endemic regions