Current Rinderpest Global Situation

Abstract

Rinderpest, also known historically as 'cattle plague', is a serious contagious disease of cattle, Asian buffaloes, yaks and other artiodactyls, both domesticated and wild, including swine, African buffaloes and giraffes. According to Drs Gordon Scott and Alain Provost (1992), it is the most dreaded bovine disease known, belonging to a select group of notorious infectious agents that have changed the course of history. From its known origins around the Caspian Sea, century after century, rinderp est swept west into Europe and east into Asia with every marauding army causing the disaster, death and devastation that preceded the fall of the Roman Empire, the conquest of Christian Europe by Charlemagne, the French Revolution, the impoverishment of Russia and the colonisation of Africa.