Scientists have called rinderpest the most devastating livestock disease in history, so it was no minor announcement when the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization announced its eradication in June.
“This is quite a momentous occasion for humanity,” said Juan Lubroth, FAO’s chief veterinary officer.
“The suffering that this disease has caused through the millennia is incredible,” added William R. White, a rinderpest expert at the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
“This is probably the greatest achievement in veterinary medicine.”
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The virus caused respiratory disease and gut problems in cloven-hoofed animals, leading to diarrhea, dehydration and, for 80 to 95 percent of cattle that contracted it, death.
This made it devastating to livestock-dependent communities in Third World countries, particularly in Africa. As the virus spread within herds, killing most of their members, people would be left without meat, milk and the ability to plow land for crops.
Rinderpest would attack any cloven-hoofed animals, including buffalos, water buffalos, antelopes, deer, pigs and yaks. While it was fairly easily eliminated in the United Kingdom years ago, it stubbornly hung on in countries riven by war and poverty, until now.
Although this is a great achievement, the eradication of rinderpest also highlights how daunting and difficult it is to eliminate diseases, whether animal or human.
It has only happened once before, with the eradication of smallpox. Viruses are notorious for mutating, making eradication a moving target.
Indeed, a likely crucial element to its eradication is that rinderpest remained a single-strain virus. Because it did not mutate, vaccination was highly successful.
But wars waged against other diseases are, thus far, not being won.
For example, the battle against polio has been going hard since 1988. Unfortunately, after making considerable strides at the beginning of the effort, there has been no further reduction in cases since 2001.
That being said, the elimination of rinderpest proves that the happy death of smallpox was not just a one-off.
It’s important not to relegate the significance of eradication only to the Third World, or only to a limited region. As long as rinderpest existed, it remained a potential threat to any herd, anywhere.
This is why a global view on disease management, and hopefully eradication, must consistently be taken. The biggest lesson emerging from the elimination of rinderpest is how successful the effects of global co-operation can be.
For example, the world’s livestock scientists, most of them from developed countries, kept trying methods of treatment — including personally vaccinating cattle — until they realized the best method was training herd owners to provide vaccinations themselves.
It’s also a shining example of how managing the food supply can be assisted by co-operation, and not only through disease eradication.
If the pervasive view of looming future food shortages is correct — that the world will be trying to feed nine billion residents by 2050 — managing disease will be a critical part of staving off starvation. Other science must also come into the picture, such as improving crop hardiness or drought resistance.
It’s hard not to wonder what the next great breakthrough might be. Is there any hope of eradicating the prions that cause BSE or chronic wasting disease? Could foot-and-mouth disease be eliminated? Again, FMD is rare or non-existent in some developed countries but continues to be problematic in parts of Asia, Africa and South America.
As long as there is political, financial and scientific will, as evidenced in the winning battle against rinderpest, there is hope for more breakthroughs, and for ways to assure the world’s food supply.
Bruce Dyck, Terry Fries, Barb Glen, D’Arce McMillan and Joanne Paulson collaborate in the writing of Western Producer editorials.
