Tuesday AfricaDigest (10/19): Virus Deadly in Livestock Is No More, U.N. Declares
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Oct 19, 2010, 7:24:04 AM10/19/10
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Virus Deadly in Livestock Is No More, U.N. Declares
By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
New York Times
In only the second elimination of a disease in history, rinderpest — a
virus that used to kill cattle by the millions, leading to famine and
death among humans — has been declared wiped off the face of the
earth.
Rinderpest, which means “cattle plague” in German, does not infect
humans, though it belongs to the same viral family as measles. But for
millenniums in Asia, Europe and Africa it wiped out cattle, water
buffalo, yaks and other animals needed for meat, milk, plowing and
cart-pulling.
Its mortality rate is about 80 percent — higher even than smallpox,
the only other disease ever eliminated.
“This is something the entire global community can be proud of,” said
Dr. William R. White, director of the United States Department of
Agriculture’s foreign animal disease diagnostic laboratory on Plum
Island, N.Y. “Rinderpest has caused almost unimaginable misery for a
very long time.”
The last case was seen in Kenya in 2001. On Thursday, the United
Nations Food and Agricultural Organization announced that it was
dropping its field surveillance efforts because it was convinced that
the disease was gone. The official ceremony in which the World
Organization for Animal Health will declare the world rinderpest-free
is scheduled for May. (That organization, known as the O.I.E. for its
initials in French, was created in 1929 chiefly to fight rinderpest.)
“This has been a remarkable achievement for veterinary science,
evidence of the commitment of numerous countries,” the Food and
Agricultural Organization said in its statement.
Still to be decided is how much virus to keep frozen in various
countries’ laboratories, along with tissue from infected animals and
stocks of vaccine, which is made from live virus. Virologists like to
have samples handy for research, but public health experts, fearing
laboratory accidents or acts of terrorism, usually press to destroy as
much as possible. The smallpox virus is officially supposed to exist
only in two lab freezers, one in Atlanta and one in Moscow.
Rinderpest is thought to have originated in Asia and spread through
prehistoric cattle trading; it was in Egypt 5,000 years ago. It never
became established in the Americas (though there was a small outbreak
in Brazil 90 years ago), nor in Australia or New Zealand. Cattle
infected with it would have started dying aboard ship and the herd
would be slaughtered or quarantined on arrival.
But it reached Africa in the late 19th century, with devastating
consequences. The near total destruction of herds meant widespread
famines; in one of those, a third of the population of Ethiopia died,
according to the Food and Agricultural Organization.
It was apparently introduced to Abyssinia, which is now Ethiopia, in
cattle from India imported by the Italians during their campaign to
conquer Abyssinia, said Dr. Jeffrey M.B. Musser, a rinderpest expert
at Texas A&M’s veterinary school. Some experts believe it was
deliberate, as a form of biological warfare, he said, while others
contend that it was accidental.
It also infected game animals, like giraffes and antelopes, but did
not kill as many of them.
For centuries, cattle owners and local veterinary officials fought the
disease with slaughter, quarantine and crude immunization efforts. As
with smallpox, many tried “inoculation” — cutting open the skin and
introducing pus or tissue from infected animals, sometimes treated
with heat or chemicals, hoping to cause minor infections that would
create immunity. But these efforts sometimes just spread the disease.
Then in the 1950s, Walter Plowright, a British veterinary pathologist
working in Africa, developed a successful vaccine using live, weakened
virus produced with the same cell-culture techniques pioneered for
polio.
The global effort to eliminate rinderpest was officially begun in
1994. It relied on the vaccine and a network of field agents and
laboratories that could hunt for and confirm outbreaks.
Nine years passed between the last known case and this week’s de facto
declaration that the disease was gone, but such timelines are typical
in disease eradication. Many diseases resemble one another, and the
authorities need both time and frequent blood testing to be sure one
is really gone. The last case of smallpox was seen in Somalia in 1977,
but the disease was not declared eradicated until 1980. (In April,
there was a brief scare in Uganda when doctors reported a new case; it
turned out to be chicken pox.) Veterinary diseases need longer
surveillance; while mothers will carry sick children many miles to a
doctor, herders often just have to let animals die.
The virus that caused a worldwide outbreak in 2002 of SARS, or severe
acute respiratory syndrome, was effectively contained by mid-2003. The
last known case, caused by a lab accident, occurred in 2004, but SARS
is not considered eliminated because it is assumed to persist in bats,
wild civets and perhaps other animals, and could return.
---------------
Extreme justice is extreme injustice. -Marcus Tullius Cicero,
statesman, orator, writer (106-43 BCE)
---------------
This posting is provided without permission of the copyright owner for
purposes of criticism, comment, scholarship, and research under the
"Fair Use" provisions of U.S.Government copyright laws and it may not
be distributed further without permission of the copyright owner. The
sender does not vouch for the accuracy of the content of the message,
which is the sole responsibility of the copyright
By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
New York Times
In only the second elimination of a disease in history, rinderpest — a
virus that used to kill cattle by the millions, leading to famine and
death among humans — has been declared wiped off the face of the
earth.
Rinderpest, which means “cattle plague” in German, does not infect
humans, though it belongs to the same viral family as measles. But for
millenniums in Asia, Europe and Africa it wiped out cattle, water
buffalo, yaks and other animals needed for meat, milk, plowing and
cart-pulling.
Its mortality rate is about 80 percent — higher even than smallpox,
the only other disease ever eliminated.
“This is something the entire global community can be proud of,” said
Dr. William R. White, director of the United States Department of
Agriculture’s foreign animal disease diagnostic laboratory on Plum
Island, N.Y. “Rinderpest has caused almost unimaginable misery for a
very long time.”
The last case was seen in Kenya in 2001. On Thursday, the United
Nations Food and Agricultural Organization announced that it was
dropping its field surveillance efforts because it was convinced that
the disease was gone. The official ceremony in which the World
Organization for Animal Health will declare the world rinderpest-free
is scheduled for May. (That organization, known as the O.I.E. for its
initials in French, was created in 1929 chiefly to fight rinderpest.)
“This has been a remarkable achievement for veterinary science,
evidence of the commitment of numerous countries,” the Food and
Agricultural Organization said in its statement.
Still to be decided is how much virus to keep frozen in various
countries’ laboratories, along with tissue from infected animals and
stocks of vaccine, which is made from live virus. Virologists like to
have samples handy for research, but public health experts, fearing
laboratory accidents or acts of terrorism, usually press to destroy as
much as possible. The smallpox virus is officially supposed to exist
only in two lab freezers, one in Atlanta and one in Moscow.
Rinderpest is thought to have originated in Asia and spread through
prehistoric cattle trading; it was in Egypt 5,000 years ago. It never
became established in the Americas (though there was a small outbreak
in Brazil 90 years ago), nor in Australia or New Zealand. Cattle
infected with it would have started dying aboard ship and the herd
would be slaughtered or quarantined on arrival.
But it reached Africa in the late 19th century, with devastating
consequences. The near total destruction of herds meant widespread
famines; in one of those, a third of the population of Ethiopia died,
according to the Food and Agricultural Organization.
It was apparently introduced to Abyssinia, which is now Ethiopia, in
cattle from India imported by the Italians during their campaign to
conquer Abyssinia, said Dr. Jeffrey M.B. Musser, a rinderpest expert
at Texas A&M’s veterinary school. Some experts believe it was
deliberate, as a form of biological warfare, he said, while others
contend that it was accidental.
It also infected game animals, like giraffes and antelopes, but did
not kill as many of them.
For centuries, cattle owners and local veterinary officials fought the
disease with slaughter, quarantine and crude immunization efforts. As
with smallpox, many tried “inoculation” — cutting open the skin and
introducing pus or tissue from infected animals, sometimes treated
with heat or chemicals, hoping to cause minor infections that would
create immunity. But these efforts sometimes just spread the disease.
Then in the 1950s, Walter Plowright, a British veterinary pathologist
working in Africa, developed a successful vaccine using live, weakened
virus produced with the same cell-culture techniques pioneered for
polio.
The global effort to eliminate rinderpest was officially begun in
1994. It relied on the vaccine and a network of field agents and
laboratories that could hunt for and confirm outbreaks.
Nine years passed between the last known case and this week’s de facto
declaration that the disease was gone, but such timelines are typical
in disease eradication. Many diseases resemble one another, and the
authorities need both time and frequent blood testing to be sure one
is really gone. The last case of smallpox was seen in Somalia in 1977,
but the disease was not declared eradicated until 1980. (In April,
there was a brief scare in Uganda when doctors reported a new case; it
turned out to be chicken pox.) Veterinary diseases need longer
surveillance; while mothers will carry sick children many miles to a
doctor, herders often just have to let animals die.
The virus that caused a worldwide outbreak in 2002 of SARS, or severe
acute respiratory syndrome, was effectively contained by mid-2003. The
last known case, caused by a lab accident, occurred in 2004, but SARS
is not considered eliminated because it is assumed to persist in bats,
wild civets and perhaps other animals, and could return.
---------------
Extreme justice is extreme injustice. -Marcus Tullius Cicero,
statesman, orator, writer (106-43 BCE)
---------------
This posting is provided without permission of the copyright owner for
purposes of criticism, comment, scholarship, and research under the
"Fair Use" provisions of U.S.Government copyright laws and it may not
be distributed further without permission of the copyright owner. The
sender does not vouch for the accuracy of the content of the message,
which is the sole responsibility of the copyright
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