Rinderpest (also cattle plague or steppe murrain) was an infectious viral disease of cattle, domestic water buffalo, and many other species of even-toed ungulates, including gaurs, buffalo, bison, antelope, deer, giraffes, wildebeests, and warthogs. The disease was characterized by fever, oral erosions, diarrhea, lymphoid necrosis, and high mortality. Death rates during outbreaks were usually extremely high, approaching 100% in immunologically naïve populations. Rinderpest virus (RPV) belongs to the genus Morbillivirus, alongside measles virus - its closest relative - and canine distemper virus. The measles virus may have diverged from rinderpest around the 6th century BC, coinciding with the first human settlements large enough to sustain endemic measles transmission. After a global eradication campaign that began in the mid-20th century, the last confirmed case of rinderpest was diagnosed in 2001. In 2010, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) announced that field activities in the decades-long, worldwide campaign to eradicate the disease were ending, paving the way for a formal declaration in June 2011 of the global eradication of rinderpest. This makes it only the second disease in history to be fully wiped out, following smallpox.

Virus

Rinderpest virus (RPV) is a member of the genus Morbillivirus, which also includes the measles and canine distemper viruses.

Measles virus and rinderpest virus diverged from a common ancestor, most likely a cattle-infecting virus. The spillover to humans; and thus the emergence of measles; could have occurred at any point between this divergence and the most recent common ancestor of all known measles virus strains, estimated at 1880 CE. The disease was mainly spread by direct contact and by drinking contaminated water, although it could also be transmitted by air.

Initial symptoms include fever, loss of appetite, and nasal and eye discharges. Subsequently, irregular erosions appear in the mouth, the lining of the nose, and the genital tract.

History and epizootics

thumb|God's Punishment on the Netherlands through the Cattle Plague, 1745 by Jan Smit

Early history

The disease is believed to have originated in Asia, later spreading through the transport of cattle.

18th century

Cattle plagues recurred throughout history, often accompanying wars and military campaigns. They hit Europe especially hard in the 18th century, with three long panzootics, which although varying in intensity and duration from region to region, took place in the periods of 1709–1720, 1742–1760, and 1768–1786. In the 18th century a deadly outbreak between 1769 and 1785 resulted in universal governmental action, but with somewhat divergent responses. The Dutch and the German principalities demanded quarantines and strict burial practices; England and large parts of Italy (the Papal States) saw slaughter of infected animals; in the Austrian Netherlands (Flanders), the response was inspection and precautionary slaughter coupled with compensation to the owners. No code of practice and no standard responses were used, but for a hundred years thereafter in German-speaking countries, the focus on the problem of rinderpest was less intense.

Inoculation

In the early 18th century, the disease was seen as similar to smallpox, due to its analogous symptoms. The personal physician of the pope, Giovanni Maria Lancisi, recommended the destruction of all infected and exposed animals. This policy was not very popular and was used only sparingly in the first part of the century. Later, it was used successfully in several countries, although it was sometimes seen as too costly or drastic, and depended on a strong central authority to be effective (which was notably lacking in the Dutch Republic). Because of these downsides, numerous attempts were made to inoculate animals against the disease. These attempts met with varying success, but the procedure was not widely used and was no longer practiced at all in 19th-century Western or Central Europe. Rinderpest was an immense problem, but inoculation was not a valid solution. In many cases, it caused too many losses. Even more importantly, it perpetuated the circulation of the virus in the cattle population. The pioneers of inoculation did contribute significantly to knowledge about infectious diseases. Their experiments confirmed the concepts of those who saw infectious diseases as caused by specific agents, and were the first to recognize maternally derived immunity. In August 1865 an Order of the British Privy Council required the slaughter of rinderpest-affected cattle. By early May 1867, the overall slaughter total was around 75,000 cattle, which at that time had a value around £10 per head. Initially, £55,000 were granted (after a period of delay) to compensate farmers where they complied with the slaughter directive, but had no other source of compensation. In certain areas, such as Aberdeenshire and Norfolk, farmers had banded together to provide mutual assurance by creating a resource pool against the risk of rinderpest. Because the initial slaughter regimen was not backed by compensation, the presence of a voluntary mutual assurance scheme drove down the infection rates by guaranteeing payment for compliance with the government instruction. The Privy Council ordered a detailed investigation of the disaster, which reported in 1868.

In 1871, an international Rinderpest convention was held in Vienna. It was purposed to establish mechanisms for reporting outbreaks to warn neighbouring countries, and so as to establish policies for inspections, quarantines, and disinfections, as well as monitoring the cattle trade. Prussian authorities considered military border guards to hinder the spread of the disease.

Rinderpest in 19th-century Africa

thumb|Cows dead from rinderpest in South Africa, 1896

Around the turn of the century, a plague struck in Southern Africa. establishes a critical commentary on the theory that in 1888, rinderpest was introduced into Abyssinia (modern Ethiopia) by the invading Italian army, which supposedly brought with them infected cattle from India. The procurement chain is not traced beyond an Egyptian businessman from Cairo, but the British Army possibly got their draft oxen from India. However, the documentary chain only supported limited negative conclusions; Spinage states that "[t]here is therefore no evidence in contemporary accounts that the rinderpest panzootic was imported from India with infected oxen to provision the Italian landing at Massawa". As a result, determining from where rinderpest in South Africa originated in the 19th century may be impossible – whether from invading Italians, invading Egyptians, or local breakouts in Eritrea. Once in progress, the infection eventually spread to the shores of Lake Victoria and into German Tanzania.

Sunseri Meanwhile, the Crocodile River in the Transvaal was reported as choked with cattle and other animal corpses, but remained in use. During the dry season, the government made no attempt to control use of the watering holes, fearing the consequences if they did. The Boers essentially did no better, mainly because they continued to migrate their cattle between parcels of land rather than remaining stationery within a particular parcel.

Complaint by both Boer and Tswana groups was focused on the government rather than mutual hostility. Fencing, and quarantining coupled with killing of infected cattle, was a policy barely controllable in the expanses of the colony, though it had some success in England. However, fencing resulted in herd-mingling and consequent infection. The Tswana herds were quarantined together; the Boer herds were also quarantined, but on their own land. The system was very unpopular, and the policy was scorned and pilloried in the press; plenty of reports came out to the effect that the disease was spread by the quarantine guards and by the veterinarians, all of whom were less than careful about disinfecting themselves.

The major spreader of disease plausibly could have been negligent government officials or contractors moving directly from areas known to be diseased to other areas in protective quarantine. In Southern Bechuanaland alone, over 400 men were hired as quarantine guards. Owners from both groups resisted the guards, and the Boers vigorously resisted the killing of their cattle. Both groups likely raised the fences, and several Boer groups deliberately spread the disease to claim the compensation. By 1896, the government campaign was generally recognised as having completely failed, overwhelmed by a storm of contributory causes to the spread of the disease. The consequences for the Africans were especially severe. Though cattle numbers revived subsequently, the consequent human toll was mass starvation in the absence of herding, hunting, and farming. The human losses were estimated to be as high as one-third of the population of Ethiopia and two-thirds of the Maasai people of Tanzania. "hence the European view of an empty unspoiled Africa teeming with game".

Rinderpest in 19th-century Asia

thumb|Japanese 19th century print recording disposal of rinderpest-infected cattle (anonymous)

Japan also sustained the presence of rinderpest in the 19th century as illustrated in an anonymous print. The disease was present for centuries in China, Japan, and Korea. Japanese black and Korean yellow breed cattle were known to be especially susceptible to it.

In 1868, a serious outbreak of rinderpest occurred in India, which was investigated by Colonel James Hallen of the Indian Cattle Plague Commission, leading to the publication of his survey in 1871. The Imperial Bacteriological Laboratory from 1893 was at Mukteshwar in India. It hosted much research work and many samples. Its founding director was British pathologist Alfred Lingard.

thumb|A tiger seizes its prey (Illustration, 1901, from Animals in Action: Studies and Stories of Beasts, Birds and Reptiles...)

In India, some farmers were reported as not hostile to tigers because of the consideration that their attacks on diseased or weaker animals reduced the risk of rinderpest.

20th century

In his classic study of the Nuer of southern Sudan, E. E. Evans-Pritchard suggested rinderpest might have affected the Nuer's social organization before and during the 1930s. Since the Nuer were pastoralists, much of their livelihood was based on cattle husbandry, and bride prices were paid in cattle; prices may have changed as a result of cattle depletion. Rinderpest might also have increased dependence on horticulture among the Nuer.

Rinderpest was eradicated from Japan in 1922, as recorded by the Nippon Institute for Biological Science. Distinguished Japanese scientist and director of the Nippon Institute for Biological Science, Junji Nakamura (1903–1975), was a major researcher into rinderpest, and the contribution of his work to the worldwide eradication of rinderpest was acknowledged by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations. The FAO posthumously presented a certificate of appreciation in 2011.

Vaccination

thumb|Mr. G. W. F. Mahoney, Veterinary Laboratory Superintendent at Abuko, June 1959

In 1917–18, William Hutchins Boynton (1881–1959), the chief veterinary pathologist with the Philippine Bureau of Agriculture, developed an early vaccine for rinderpest, based on treated animal organ extracts.

In 1959, rinderpest vaccine was prepared at government laboratories in Abuko in The Gambia from the spleen of infected cattle.

Walter Plowright worked on a vaccine for the RBOK strain of the rinderpest virus from 1956 to 1962. Plowright was awarded the World Food Prize in 1999 for developing a vaccine against a strain of rinderpest. In 1999, the FAO predicted that with vaccination, rinderpest would be eradicated by 2010.

Eradication

thumb|upright|Rinderpest memorial [[Mukteshwar (2019) by Shyamal]]

Widespread eradication efforts began in the early 20th century, although until the 1950s, they mostly took place on an individual country basis, using vaccination campaigns. In 1924, the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) was formed in response to rinderpest. In 1950, the Inter-African Bureau of Epizootic Diseases was formed, with the stated goal of eliminating rinderpest from Africa. During the 1960s, a program called JP 15 attempted to vaccinate all cattle in participating countries and, by 1979, only one of the countries involved, Sudan, reported cases of rinderpest.

In 1969, an outbreak of the disease originated in Afghanistan, travelling westwards and promoting a mass vaccination plan, which by 1972, had eliminated rinderpest in all areas of Asia except for Lebanon and India; both countries were the site of further occurrences of the disease in the 1980s.

By 2000, only the Horn of Africa and Pakistan appeared to have a continued presence. Mariner et al., 2000 introduced participatory disease surveillance to rinderpest efforts. The last confirmed case of rinderpest was reported in Kenya in 2001. Since then, while no cases have been confirmed, the disease is believed to have been present in parts of Somalia past that date.

In October 2010, the FAO announced it was confident the disease has been eradicated. The agency said that "[a]s of mid 2010, FAO is confident that the rinderpest virus has been eliminated from Europe, Asia, Middle East, Arabian Peninsula, and Africa," which were the locations where the virus had been last reported.

On 28 June 2011, FAO and its members countries officially recognized global freedom from the deadly cattle virus. On this day, the FAO Conference, the highest body of the UN agency, adopted a resolution declaring the eradication of rinderpest. The resolution also called on the world community to follow up by ensuring that samples of rinderpest viruses and vaccines be kept under safe laboratory conditions and that rigorous standards for disease surveillance and reporting be applied. "While we are celebrating one of the greatest successes for FAO and its partners, I wish to remind you that this extraordinary achievement would not have been possible without the joint efforts and strong commitments of governments, the main organizations in Africa, Asia, and Europe, and without the continuous support of donors and international institutions", FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf commented.

The rinderpest eradication effort is estimated to have cost US$5 billion.

On 14 June 2019, the largest stock of the rinderpest virus was destroyed at the Pirbright Institute.

Use as a biological weapon

Rinderpest was one of more than a dozen agents the United States government researched as potential biological weapons before terminating its biological weapons program.

Rinderpest is of concern as a biological weapon for these reasons:

  • The disease has high rates of morbidity and mortality.
  • It is highly communicable and spreads rapidly once introduced into nonimmune herds.
  • Cattle herds are no longer immunized against RPV, so are susceptible to infection.

Rinderpest was also considered as a biological weapon in a United Kingdom government programme during World War II.

See also

  • Murrain
  • Ovine rinderpest
  • Rift Valley fever
  • Smallpox

Footnotes

General and cited references

  • The IAEA's activities with rinderpest ()
  • Rinderpest reviewed and published by WikiVet
  • FAO Maintaining Global Freedom from Rinderpest
  • OIE Rinderpest disease card