The Global Effort to Eradicate Rinderpest
During the past 70 years, concerted efforts by the national veterinary services of affected countries from Senegal to China and Russia to South Africa—aided by international organizations—have brought the once-dreaded rinderpest virus to the point of extinction. In the near future, we can expect to see a global declaration of freedom from rinderpest, the first time this has been achieved for a livestock disease. The devastation wrought by rinderpest stimulated the founding of veterinary schools in many countries, and provided the basis for the development of the veterinary profession.