Experience with eradicating rinderpest by vaccination.

Abstract

Rinderpest was such a devastating disease throughout Africa, Asia and Europe, capable of shaping the destinies of governments as well as the livelihoods of producers and consumers alike, that all sectors of society demanded that scientists should strive to develop a means of protecting cattle against the constant risk. The history of vaccination as a tool for the control of rinderpest is a long one but finally spawned a vaccine which certainly ranks highly among the safest and most efficacious of vaccines. Having this Tissue Culture Rinderpest Vaccine (TCRV) available generated aspirations of global rinderpest control and even eradication, which could now be considered feasible.