WHEN the world celebrated the eradication of smallpox in 1979, it was widely assumed that other infectious diseases would soon follow it into the history books. Yet a quarter of a century later, despite heroic efforts to eliminate polio, leprosy and numerous other diseases, smallpox remains the only one we have conquered.
So it should be a cause for celebration that another infectious disease is at last on the brink of eradication (see 鈥淜iller in the fold鈥�). It鈥檚 not a human disease, but that hardly matters, as the cattle plague rinderpest has arguably caused people more misery, poverty and death than most human diseases, especially in Africa.
The virus is now confined to a small area of pastoral land on the Somalia-Kenya border. Rinderpest, in short, is there for the taking. Yet with success tantalisingly close, the eradication programme is faltering. Money is short, and to make matters worse two groups of experts are fighting over the best way to finish the job. One group wants to mass-vaccinate; the other favours surveillance and targeted vaccination. With each passing day it becomes more likely that the virus will break out and reinfect cattle across the Horn of Africa. This would mean the end of an eradication programme that has already cost 鈧�270 million, with little hope of the world stumping up the cash for another attempt.
Advertisement
Letting rinderpest off the hook would be a tragedy. What is needed is a funding commitment from the international community to finish the job, and for the warring scientists to put aside their differences. For millions of rural Africans, the consequences of failure are unthinkable.