Rinderpest has been eradicated

[Enrique]

:party:

http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/06/29/cattle.plague.eradicated/

(CNN) -- It decimated herds and caused disaster, devastation and death associated with the fall of the Roman Empire, the French Revolution and the colonization of Africa.

But after years of global efforts, rinderpest -- German for cattle plague -- doesn't exist anymore. It is the first animal disease to be eradicated and only the second disease ever, after smallpox in 1980.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization declared Tuesday that the world was rid of rinderpest.

"This is of tremendous benefit to people and is also a relief for a lot of animal suffering," said Peter Cowen, an associate professor of epidemiology and public health at North Carolina State University.

"The eradication of rinderpest in the animal health world is every bit as courageous an effort and as creative an effort as was the eradication of smallpox," he said.

(...)

[Kali]

1. it is always prominent in old livestock management books

but oddly "missing" from actual livestock all my life

[asjr]

2. Will Budapest be next?