RINDERPEST - WORLDWIDE: GLOBAL RESEARCH MORATORIUM,
+ ProMED-mail
post
Call for countries to comply with moratorium on
research using live
rinderpest virus. Did we really eradicated Rinderpest?
هل قضينا على مرض الطاعون البقري مثلما قضي على مرض الجدري في البشر؟
 |
| In the early years of the last century millions of cattle died from Rinderpest في اوائل القرن الماضي فتك المرض بملايين الابقار في دول كثيره |
Rinderpest,(الطاعون البقري) or
cattle plague, is a contagious and highly-fatal disease of cattle, buffaloes,
yaks and many other artiodactyls (even-toed ungulates), both domesticated and
wild. Vulnerable animals include swine, giraffes and kudus.
Rinderpest is caused by a morbillivirus related to
human measles, canine distemper and peste des petits ruminants. Affected animals have a high fever, depression, nasal/ocular discharges,
erosions in the mouth and the digestive tract, along with diarrhea. The animals
rapidly become dehydrated and emaciated, dying one week or so after showing
signs of the disease. Rinderpest is not known to infect humans, but its impact on cattle and
other animals has had a tremendous impact on human livelihoods and food
security, due to its ability to wipe out entire herds of cattle in a matter of
days.
 |
| lunch break for vaccination team from Suliemaniah 1971. Pictured with me are the team including Dr. Ali .Hameed اثناء الاستراحه من حملة تطعيمات الطاعون البقري في السليمانيه عام 1971 معي في الصوره الدكتور علي حميد وفريق مستشفى البيطري |
Rinderpest is an ancient disease whose signs were recognized long
before it bore its current name. The virus could well have been the origin of
human measles when people first started to domesticate cattle, more than 10,000
years ago. Historical accounts suggest that rinderpest originated in the
steppes of Central Eurasia, later sweeping across Europe and Asia with
military campaigns and livestock imports. In the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries, the disease devastated parts of Africa. Rinderpest also appeared
briefly in the Americas and Australia with imported animals, but was quickly
eliminated.
Rinderpest epidemics and resulting losses preceded the fall of the
Roman empire, the conquest of Christian Europe by Charlemagne, the French
Revolution and the impoverishment of Russia. When rinderpest was introduced
into sub-Saharan Africa, at the end of the 19th century, it triggered extensive famines
and opened the way for the colonization of Africa. In the 1940s in China, it
became clear that significant agricultural development was not possible while
rinderpest went unchecked. Subsequent control of the disease worldwide
contributed to the Green Revolution in agricultural production.
FAO and (OIE) are calling on countries to comply with a
global moratorium on research that involves working with live rinderpest virus
in laboratories and are working together to bring about the
destruction of potentially dangerous virus samples and biological
materials that are currently stored in more than 40 laboratories across
the world, some under insufficient levels of biosecurity. Some reserves
of rinderpest virus should be kept to produce vaccines and for
research in case the disease emerges again or is released as a result of an
accidental or deliberate act.
Rinderpest was officially declared eradicated by OIE
and FAO a year ago [May 2011], meaning that the virus that causes this
destructive livestock disease no longer circulates in animals and
continues to exist only in laboratories. Rinderpest does not affect
humans.
Two international resolutions were passed in 2011 and countries agreed to destroy remaining stocks of
rinderpest virus or to safely store them in a limited number of approved high
containment laboratories.
The moratorium will remain
in place and all future research proposals should be submitted for approval, in keeping with the 2011 resolutions. It has been advised that a similar approach to that used with smallpox, following its eradication from the human population in 1979, is now taken with control of laboratory stocks of rinderpest virus.
Destroying the virus should be the main priority. In
certain cases, virus-containing materials can be safely transported to
an FAO/OIE-approved high containment facility for
biologically secure storage. African countries have found a good model by agreeing to either destroy their rinderpest material or transfer it to be
kept in the custody of the African Union's Pan African Veterinary
Vaccine Centre in Ethiopia. Others could emulate this model.
As part of the rinderpest post-eradication strategy,
countries are committed to maintaining a
sufficient level of monitoring and surveillance for rinderpest virus
outbreaks until 2020.
The commitment of donors was key in eradicating
rinderpest, only the
second disease in history to have been successfully
eradicated?
KURDISTANFOODSECURITY Comments
Only time will tell if rinderpest has been successfully eradicated. OIE and FAO were not alone in combatting this disease as the EU, through the Pan African Rinderpest Campaign (PARC) also contributed a great deal to combatting this disease as did countries in both South America and south east Asia. However the nature of the virus itself had a part to play as its virulence decreased dramatically throughout the last century. The inidence of the disease and fatalities reduced to such an extent that clinical symptoms were reduced to such an extent that confirmation of the disease was totally reliant on laboratory confirmation. Hot spots for the re-emergence of rinderpest could still remain in the wild buffalo of east Africa and in the cross boundary animal movements between Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran and even Iraq. If the virus does remain as a weakened form, with little evidence of clinical symptoms and remains undiagnosed, then there is the ever present risk that its virulence could increase and we see the emergence of rinderpest epidemics again.
It is too early for us to become complacent with regards to this plague of cattle and we need to remain vigilant for a few more years.
No comments:
Post a Comment