Reporting on rinderpest

Credit: FAO

Drought in Eastern Africa brings added concerns to livestock owners in the region who are now at greater risk from a resurgence of epidemic diseases, including rinderpest, as livestock are stressed and herders are forced to move in search of water and grazing. Climate experts who recently met Arusha, Tanzania, predicted a 50% chance that the upcoming April Gu rains - which account for close to three-quarters of crop yields and are crucial for livestock pasture - could fail. More than 15 million people, according to WFP estimates, could be affected in the region with the most seriously affected populations likely to be agro-pastoralists in southern and eastern Ethiopia, Somalia and northern Kenya. Whilst the need for vigilance is of paramount importance in this highly vulnerable area and other regions where rinderpest still persists, positive progress towards rinderpest eradication is being made in Sudan and Pakistan.

The threat persists

Particular concern for the eradication of rinderpest at this time relates to the risk of it spreading from southern Somalia, where the status of the disease remains largely undefined.

In the past, droughts in the region appear to have been the precipitating factor in causing rinderpest to flare-up in stressed populations of cattle and wildlife (see box). If rinderpest spreads as a result of the current situation, it will be a severe test of Kenya's defences, which include maintenance of a vaccinated buffer zone in the east of the country. (see http://www.net2000ke.com/coastweek/thousand.htm)

Warnings to be watchful

The threat of rinderpest therefore still looms and countries at risk need to be vigilant against reintroduction and ready to react rapidly on suspicions of the disease. This is of particular concern to countries that are following the guideline of the OIE Pathway to demonstrate their freedom from rinderpest. They have dispensed with costly mass vaccination programmes - an essential step to provide a susceptible population of cattle in which any residual reservoir of infection would become apparent. Most cattle in the central and West African regions therefore no longer have any immunity to rinderpest and are especially vulnerable to any spread of the disease.

Credit: FAO

In Sudan - the other documented reservoir of rinderpest in Africa - recent disease intelligence, through the National Authorities as well as Operation Lifeline Sudan (OLS), is that rinderpest could well be limited at present to a very small area in Sudan's eastern Equatoria Province. "In fact," states Peter Roeder, Animal Health Officer responsible for viral diseases at FAO and the Secretary of the Global Rinderpest Eradication Programme, "The disease could be eliminated very quickly, were it not for the problems of civil strife that affect the area." Eradication control efforts in the affected area have been greatly assisted by NGOs operating community-based animal health services working under OLS but this effort has been compromised in recent months by withdrawal of several NGOs.

In Asia, the continuing persistence of rinderpest in Pakistan and in bordering areas of Afghanistan has categorized the region as an international emergency since 1997. However, according to Peter Roeder of GREP, a workshop held in Pakistan in February 2000 demonstrated a new vision amongst senior officials who now believe that rinderpest eradication is in their grasp. Indeed, recent reports from investigations in Pakistan, which have yet to be confirmed, indicate that even in Sindh Province, where the disease was endemic until recently, there has been no evidence of rinderpest within the last year. These findings do not, as yet, permit the conclusion that rinderpest has been eliminated from the region because disease surveillance still needs to be considerably strengthened. However rinderpest, if indeed it is still present, must be occurring only at a very low incidence. If reports in Pakistan about the absence of rinderpest are confirmed, countries in surrounding regions, which have been following the international pathway to prove their freedom from the disease, could be more confident that they are finally free from the threat of rinderpest.

Maintaining motivation

While most recent reports about rinderpest, particularly in Pakistan and Sudan, are encouraging, there is still no room for complacency. Lessons learned from previous eradication efforts have demonstrated that "near-eradication" is not good enough. Denis Hoffman, FAO Regional Animal Production and Health Officer for Asia and the Pacific, feels that this message is of the utmost importance. "I think this is a very difficult time because the low incidence of rinderpest causes people to say, 'Well, why not stop now?' We simply can't stop now, we must keep going."

Ultimately everyone will benefit from the eradication of rinderpest though greater global food security, protection of rural livelihoods, enhanced international trade, and protection of wildlife. So, sustaining the eradication effort and maintaining the pathway to verified eradication of the disease is essential to achieve global freedom from rinderpest by 2010.

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