SCIENTISTS dedicated to fighting disease celebrated a rare occurrence last week – the total eradication of a disease. It’s indeed rare, since it is only the second time in human history that such a happy event has occurred. The first time scientists were able to make such a declaration was in 1980, when they affirmed that the last known case of smallpox was in Somalia in 1977.

And what is this second disease that we are rid of? Rinderpest. Rinderpest? What’s that?” you ask. What’s that, indeed. It’s no surprise that most people have never heard of it, since it affects animals – in particular, ungulates – animals with hooves. The first time I heard the name was more than 40 years ago while doing a broadcasting course in London. One of our exercises was to write and deliver a short talk on any subject. A broadcaster from Botswana chose for his topic a disease called rinderpest and how best to deal with it. I had heard of anthrax, brucellosis, hoof-and-mouth and others, but rinderpest? That was a new one.

Rinderpest, as I went on to discover, is a nasty disease. The name is German and means “cattle plague”. It kills off its victims rapidly and most unpleasantly. They develop fever and profuse discharges from their eyes and noses. Then their digestive tracts become inflamed with ugly lesions and their bodies begin literally dismantling themselves. Diarrhoea is almost constant and the loss of fluid and protein finishes off the victims.

We in Jamaica have been fortunate not to have had this particular affliction ravage our livestock, but it has mowed down herds in Asia, where it originated, Europe and Africa and has influenced history enormously. Accounts from as far back as the fourth century describe a highly contagious animal disease that spread through Europe as the Huns invaded from central Asia. Researchers have linked Mongol invasions of Europe in the 1200s with widespread infection from rinderpest.

Historians have attributed many seminal developments to the disease – they blame it for accelerating the collapse of the Roman Empire, helping Genghis Khan in his conquests while hampering the efforts of Charlemagne, who moved herds around in support of his armies in the 8th century. And they claim it probably paved the way for the great revolutions in France and Russia and in making it easier for Europeans to colonise east Africa. By infecting domestic cattle, it caused starvation in Ethiopia after entering the country in a shipment of Indian cattle in 1889. Between 1711 and 1769, rinderpest killed more than 200 million cattle in western Europe, leading the College of Cardinals in Rome to commission Giovanni Lancisi, personal physician to Pope Clement XI, to advise on the disease. He recommended stopping all movement of cattle, slaughtering infected animals and burying their bodies.

These measures didn’t make much of a dent in the pandemic, but did lead to the eradication of cattle plague in Europe as well as the establishment of international animal-study bodies and veterinary schools, such as the world’s first, in Lyon, France, in 1761, and the founding of the World Organisation for Animal Health (known by its French initials OIE) in 1924.

Societies that depend heavily on cattle and related animals are particularly vulnerable. Rinderpest affects yak in the Himalayas, water buffalo in Africa, Asia and elsewhere, zebu in Africa together with sheep, goats and Asian breeds of pigs. But wild animals, such as African buffalo, giraffes, warthogs, some antelopes, wildebeest and gazelles are also susceptible.

The disease, thankfully, never made it to the Western Hemisphere, except for a brief outbreak in Brazil in 1920. It invaded Australia in 1923, but there, again, quick and decisive action with the slaughter of 3000 animals halted rinderpest in its tracks. But right up to the 1980s rinderpest rampaged cross Africa, southern Asia and the Middle East, claiming millions of animals. The last reported outbreak was in Kenya among a herd of buffalo 10 years ago.

Last week, at its annual meeting in Paris, the World Organisation for Animal Health accepted documentation for the last 14 countries that they were now free of rinderpest, and made the welcome announcement. And now, the morbillivirus which causes the disease resides in secure laboratories under the tightest security.

This is the case with the only other disease which mankind has got rid of – smallpox, which exists in two laboratories – one in the United States and the other in Russia. There have been repeated requests and demands that the remaining stocks of the virus be destroyed, but scientists fear that if that were to happen we would be left absolutely defenceless in the unlikely event that the disease resurfaces in some guise. Specialists from several countries get together periodically to review the case, and each time they put off the destruction of the stocks of the virus. You are likely to hear the same about rinderpest.

Smallpox and rinderpest share two important traits – both were extremely virulent and produced widespread devastation. Technically, they were also relatively easy to fight because the bug wasn’t prone to constant mutation like the common cold or influenza. So the scientists could develop a vaccine which would work everywhere. Another vital factor was that institutions all over the world bought into the programme and waged a continuing, unremitting battle until the diseases were conquered. I still have a couple of the old yellow smallpox vaccination booklets which were many years ago as important as your passport and in many cases more so than a visa in entering another country.

There are several other diseases which could be eradicated with the same resolve and dedication of resources. Tuberculosis, which went into decline after World War II, has returned in many places and childhood illness like measles, chickenpox and mumps are still with us, as is polio. An international effort to eradicate it was launched in 1988, but the virus is still circulating in eight countries. Malaria, one of the biggest killers in many parts of the world, provides an uphill fight for the health community. A big push to kill it off failed miserably in the 1950s.

But difficult as these battles may be, they can be won, as the arduous struggles against smallpox and rinderpest have demonstrated. The FAO’s chief of Animal Health Service, Juan Lubroth, is justifiably satisfied with the success of the fight against rinderpest: “When I see the person who used to sit in my current chair 20, 25, even 30 years ago, that’s when it really, really hits me. It also hits me when I hear people’s stories – the villager, the grandmother of today who remembers the disease as a child, and talks about the devastation. I also choke up when I look at old photographs, that are kind of faded, of the people involved in the fight against rinderpest and I think, “We would not be here today without them.”

keeble.mack@sympatico.ca