Rinderpest, also referred to commonly as cattle plague when in severe, epidemic form, is a serious contagious disease of cattle, Asian buffaloes, yaks and many other artiodactyls [even-toed herbivores] both domesticated and wild, including particularly swine, African buffaloes, giraffes and lesser kudus. It is caused by a virus which is related closely to that of human measles, canine distemper, peste des petits ruminants and other viruses in the morbillivirus subgroup of the paramyxoviruses.

Affected animals have a high fever, erosions in the mouth, diarrhoea and rapidly become dehydrated and emaciated, dying one week or so after showing the signs of the disease.

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The answer is NO.

Rinderpest is an ancient disease, recognized for many centuries, even millennia. It could well have been the origin of human measles at the time that humans first started to domesticate cattle, more than 10,000 years ago. For centuries, it has been the most dreaded bovine plague, with dramatic effects on human society.

The homeland of rinderpest was the steppes of Central Eurasia, but Africa was devastated by the disease during the last 120 years. It never took hold in either the Americas or Australia-New Zealand, although it was introduced into each on one occasion.

Century after century it swept around Europe and Asia with every military campaign, leaving disaster, death and devastation behind it.

Rinderpest epidemics preceded the fall of the Roman empire, the conquest of Christian Europe by Charlemagne, the French revolution and the impoverishment of Russia. The resulting epidemic, which occurred when rinderpest was introduced into Sub-Saharan Africa at the end of the XIX century, weakened livestock dependent communities, caused extensive famines and opened the way for the colonization of Africa.

With the new order established in China in the late 1940s, rinderpest eradication was seen as a priority because it was appreciated that there could be no agricultural development unless the disease was brought under control. In its early days FAO was involved in trying to bring the disease under control there.

Rinderpest was such a high priority problem that it was one of the main reasons for the founding of veterinary colleges in Europe and Asia, as well as the establishment of major international organizations including the Office International des Epizooties (OIE) and FAO.

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Most definitely YES.

After 10 years of the Global Rinderpest Eradication Programme - GREP - there is now growing confidence that the whole of Asia has been free from rinderpest since the year 2000. Most of Africa is also now free from the disease.

The fight now is to eliminate the last reservoir of infection, which is suspected to be persisting in the Somali pastoral echo-system, in the border area between Kenya and Somalia.

At this time, six years remain before the deadline of 2010 set by GREP, as the time by which all countries need to be accredited by the OIE as free from rinderpest. There is no known technical reason why eradication should not be achieved.

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When rinderpest was rampant, control was largely a matter of using vaccines to achieve high levels of protection in cattle populations. Indeed, such institutionalized vaccination programmes, were one of the major activities of veterinary services throughout Africa and Asia in the last century. As the disease was brought under control, movement restrictions, combined with quarantine, became of much greater importance. In the last ten years, GREP has promoted a strategy in which mass vaccination was withdrawn, allowing the disclosure of reservoirs of endemic rinderpest maintenance. Once detected, these could then be eliminated by focused intensive vaccination of the populations of cattle in which the virus was surviving. When there was confidence that the virus had been eliminated, all vaccination was withdrawn and activities focused on intensive surveillance to confirm the absence of infection. Key to the demonstration of rinderpest freedom is an accreditation of the free status by the OIE.

If the disease was to be reintroduced into currently free countries, it would be eliminated by a combination of quarantine movement control and focal vaccination, with slaughter of affected herds if possible.

Eradication of rinderpest was greatly assisted by the development of one the world's most effective and safe vaccines by Prof. Walter Plowright in Kenya in the 1950s. This vaccine was adopted in most countries around the world. In recognition of the achievement he was awarded the World Food Prize in 1999 after nomination by FAO.

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Until there is certainty that the last reservoir of rinderpest has been eliminated, and the disease consigned to history, it is obviously essential for all countries to maintain their guard against accidental or intentional reintroduction of infection. To do this, they need to have in place effective surveillance systems, capable of detecting epidemiologically significant disease events which could be rinderpest; in fact one now searches for a disease syndrome broader than just rinderpest which we call "stomatitis-enteritis" to ensure that rinderpest would not be missed.

Therefore, all countries should expect to find occasionally cases of a disease which could be rinderpest. If this does not happen, there is something wrong with the surveillance system! It is essential that the national disease surveillance system is sufficiently sensitive to detect suspicious events at the earliest possible time. Only in this way, can action be instituted to enable rapid elimination of the disease. All members of agricultural communities owning livestock, and those involved in rendering services to them, should be aware of their responsibilities to report to national veterinary services any suspicions of rinderpest so that appropriate investigations can take place and control procedures be rapidly implemented.

National authorities in their turn, are obliged by their membership of FAO and/or OIE to communicate such suspicions rapidly to these organizations and their neighbours.

To help in the rapid recognition of rinderpest, FAO provides a World Reference Laboratory for rinderpest, which is hosted by the UK's Institutes for Animal Health. This provides a free diagnostic service for all countries.

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Initially GREP has put much effort into establishing the geographical distribution and epidemiology of the disease, and coping with emergency situations caused by epidemics of the disease. Now that the geographical extent of rinderpest has decreased so markedly, a major focus of GREP's work is to promote and support accreditation of rinderpest freedom. In doing this, it works in very close collaboration with the OIE.

Its other thrust is to work with donors and organizations such as the African Unions Inter-African Bureau for Animal Resources, to assist with understanding and eradicating the last reservoirs of infection.

With a Secretariat hosted by FAO, GREP acts as an international coordination mechanism to promote the global eradication of rinderpest, verification of rinderpest freedom and to provide sound technical guidance. Assistance from FAO's Technical Cooperation Programme and donors is provided to key countries and regional organizations to ensure that progress is sustained. Throughout GREP the Joint FAO/IAEA Division in Vienna has applied both FAO and IAEA funding to develop, transfer and support rinderpest diagnostic technology to developing countries. This technology is key to demonstrating rinderpest freedom.

Thus, GREP has been a most effective partnership between FAO, OIE, IAEA, countries and donors working closely in collaboration on a time-bound programme. If support and commitment is maintained rinderpest could soon be consigned to history and world made a safer place for livestock-based farming and food production.

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