Rinderpest was an infectious viral disease of cattle, domestic buffalo, and many other species of even-toed ungulates, including gaurs, buffaloes, large 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 was mainly transmitted by direct contact and by drinking contaminated water, although it could also be transmitted by air.
Classical swine fever (CSF) or hog cholera is a highly contagious disease of swine. It has been mentioned as a potential bioweapon.
Walter Plowright CMG FRS FRCVS was an English veterinary scientist who devoted his career to the eradication of the cattle plague rinderpest. Plowright received the 1999 World Food Prize for his development of tissue culture rinderpest vaccine (TCRV), the key element in the quest to eliminate rinderpest. Rinderpest became the first animal disease to be eliminated worldwide.
Necrotising hepatopancreatitis (NHP), is also known as Texas necrotizing hepatopancreatitis (TNHP), Texas pond mortality syndrome (TPMS) and Peru necrotizing hepatopancreatitis (PNHP), is a lethal epizootic disease of farmed shrimp. It is not very well researched yet, but generally assumed to be caused by a bacterial infection.
Ovine rinderpest, also commonly known as peste des petits ruminants (PPR), is a contagious disease primarily affecting goats and sheep; however, camels and wild small ruminants can also be affected. PPR is currently present in North, Central, West and East Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia. It is caused by Morbillivirus caprinae in the genus Morbillivirus, and is closely related to, among others, Morbillivirus pecoris, Morbillivirus hominis, and Morbillivirus canis. The disease is highly contagious, and can have an 80–100% mortality rate in acute cases in an epizootic setting. The virus does not infect humans.
A notifiable disease is any disease that is required by law to be reported to government authorities. The collation of information allows the authorities to monitor the disease, and provides early warning of possible outbreaks. In the case of livestock diseases, there may also be the legal requirement to kill the infected livestock upon notification. Many governments have enacted regulations for reporting of both human and animal diseases.
Chief veterinary officer (CVO) is the head of a veterinary authority. They have the responsibility and competence for ensuring or supervising the implementation in their nation of animal health and welfare measures, international veterinary certification and other standards and recommendations. The World Organization for Animal Health recognizes the notion of chief veterinary officers. The Council of the European Union also realizes the importance of the chief veterinary officers, and founded a preparatory body called Working Party of Chief Veterinary Officers. Typical responsibilities of a chief veterinary officer are to organize and operate a country's animal health and animal protection service and veterinary public health service, covering food chain safety, control of zoonoses, environmental contamination and role of animals in the society.
The eradication of infectious diseases is the reduction of the prevalence of an infectious disease in the global host population to zero.
The Universal Declaration on Animal Welfare (UDAW) is a proposed inter-governmental agreement to recognise that animals are sentient, to prevent cruelty and reduce suffering, and to promote standards on the welfare of animals such as farm animals, companion animals, animals in scientific research, draught animals, wildlife and animals in recreation.
The International Committee of Military Medicine (ICMM) is an international and intergovernmental organization consisting of more than one hundred states. The ICMM was established in 1921, in response to concerns over the lack of care provided during World War I. It was created to strengthen cooperation between the health services of the armed forces worldwide.
One Health is an approach calling for "the collaborative efforts of multiple disciplines working locally, nationally, and globally, to attain optimal health for people, animals and our environment", as defined by the One Health Initiative Task Force (OHITF). It developed in response to evidence of the spreading of zoonotic diseases between species and increasing awareness of "the interdependence of human and animal health and ecological change". In this viewpoint, public health is no longer seen in purely human terms. Due to a shared environment and highly conserved physiology, animals and humans not only suffer from the same zoonotic diseases but can also be treated by either structurally related or identical drugs. For this reason, special care must be taken to avoid unnecessary or over-treatment of zoonotic diseases, particularly in the context of drug resistance in infectious microbes.
Petrus Johann du Toit was a South African veterinary scientist and the successor of Arnold Theiler as Director of Veterinary Services at Onderstepoort between 1927 and 1948. He was the son of Daniel Francois du Toit (1846–1923), one of the founders of the Genootskap van Regte Afrikaners, and owner of the first Afrikaans newspaper, Die Patriot. His mother was Margaretha Magdalene van Nierop.
In the 1890s, an epizootic of the rinderpest virus struck Africa, considered to be "the most devastating epidemic to hit southern Africa in the late nineteenth century". It killed more than 5.2 million cattle south of the Zambezi, as well as domestic oxen, sheep, and goats, and wild populations of buffalo, giraffe, and wildebeest. The subsequent effects of the rinderpest outbreak thus led to massive famine, economic collapse, as well as disease outbreak in humans. Starvation spread across the region, it resulted in the death of an estimated third of the human population of Ethiopia and two-thirds of the Maasai people of Tanzania.
The World Veterinary Association is a federation representing more than eighty veterinary medical associations around the world. Its objective is to promote animal health and welfare and the realisation that animals and man live interconnected lives. It works on behalf of its member organisations with the World Health Organization, the Food and Agriculture Organization, the World Organisation for Animal Health and others to further the interests of animals, humans and the environment we all live in.
Sir Thomas Dalling was a Scottish veterinarian and lifelong champion of veterinary research and education.
A Foreign animal disease (FAD) is an animal disease or pest, whether terrestrial or aquatic, not known to exist in the United States or its territories. When these diseases can significantly affect human health or animal production and when there is significant economic cost for disease control and eradication efforts, they are considered a threat to the United States. Another term gaining preference to be used is Transboundary Animal Disease (TAD), which is defined as those epidemic diseases which are highly contagious or transmissible and have the potential for very rapid spread, irrespective of national borders, causing serious socio-economic and possibly public health consequences. An Emerging Animal Disease "may be defined as any terrestrial animal, aquatic animal, or zoonotic disease not yet known or characterized, or any known or characterized terrestrial animal or aquatic animal disease in the United States or its territories that changes or mutates in pathogenicity, communicability, or zoonotic potential to become a threat to terrestrial animals, aquatic animals, or humans."
The World Organisation for Animal Health's Terrestrial Animal Health Code (TAHC) implements improvement standards of worldwide animal health and welfare and public health from a veterinary point of view. It includes standards international trade in terrestrial biological specimens and their merchandise. National veterinary authorities use it to provide for early detection of pathogens and to prevent the transfer of same by international trade in animals and animal merchandise, while skirting "unjustified sanitary barriers to trade".
The OIE Aquatic Animal Health Code (AAHC) implements improvement standards of worldwide aquatic animal health and welfare and public health from a scientific point of view. The AAHC "compiles information on diseases of fish, molluscs and crustaceans, and on methods used to control these diseases".
The Botswana Vaccine Institute (BVI) is a veterinary research institute owned by the Botswana government that carries out research on communicable diseases in domestic animals, with emphasis on viral transmitted infections. BVI manufactures vaccines against major animal diseases for use in Botswana and for sale in 16 African and Middle Eastern countries. BVI is a "leader in the research, manufacture and supply of livestock vaccines".
