15 years after the eradication of rinderpest, lessons still ring true
Why it matters: Rinderpest's eradication prevented millions of cattle deaths and famines, saving countless human lives.
- Rinderpest, a German word meaning "cattle plague," was a devastating virus that infected cattle for millennia, killing millions of animals and causing historic famines, including one that killed one-third of Ethiopia's population in the 19th century.
- The World Health Organization recognizes rinderpest as one of only two viruses successfully eradicated, alongside smallpox, with the United Nations announcing its eradication in 2011.
- Dr. Jeffrey Mariner, a veterinary epidemiologist, and his colleagues at Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University were crucial in the collaborative efforts to eliminate rinderpest, uniting innovative social approaches with extensive community-level efforts and technological advances.
- Mariner continues to apply lessons from rinderpest, such as the importance of grassroots disease monitoring and strategic vaccination, to his current work combating goat plague (peste des petits ruminants or PPR), noting that international organizations have had to relearn some of these lessons.
Fifteen years after its official eradication, the lessons learned from permanently wiping out rinderpest—a deadly cattle plague that caused historic famines—continue to inform current efforts to combat animal diseases like goat plague. Experts like Dr. Jeffrey Mariner, instrumental in the rinderpest eradication, emphasize the enduring importance of grassroots monitoring, strategic vaccination, and collaborative social and technological approaches.
