Posted on 07/16/2013 11:05:34 PM PDT by neverdem
As moratorium lifts, oversight is put in place to assess studies on eradicated cattle virus.
Research is set to resume on the rinderpest virus, the cause of a deadly cattle disease that was declared eradicated in 2011 and has been off limits for study ever since. The moratorium — part of efforts to guard against accidental or intentional release of virus that could reintroduce the disease — was lifted on 10 July and replaced by a new international oversight system for such research.
In its heyday, the disease — the only one other than smallpox to be eradicated from nature — killed hundreds of millions of cattle, mainly in Europe, Asia and Africa, often leaving famine in its wake. Under the new oversight system, run by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in Rome and the Paris-based World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE), the risks and benefits of research proposals will be assessed by a joint advisory committee, and then the FAO and the OIE will decide on approvals. Eligible research must show potential for substantial practical or scientific benefits and be conducted under stringent biosafety and biosecurity conditions.
The first project that has garnered approval will test whether vaccines developed against a closely related virus — peste des petits ruminants (PPR), which causes disease in sheep and goats — might also protect cattle against rinderpest. Led by Michael Baron, a rinderpest researcher at the Institute for Animal Health in Pirbright, UK, the project, if successful, would eliminate the need to retain stocks of live-attenuated rinderpest vaccine. That would contribute to the goal of reducing the number of labs worldwide holding rinderpest material, thus decreasing the risk of reintroduction.
Some 55 labs in 35 countries still hold some kind of rinderpest virus...
(Excerpt) Read more at nature.com ...
Neither Rinderpest nor smallpox has been “eradicated” from nature. Both exist in more than one labs. Those labs are not metaphysical and therefore are a part of nature and those diseases can be released at any time.
Oh look. Another freebie for Al Quaida.
It’s about as “eradicated” as polio before imams made it islamic culture.
FReepmail me if you want on or off my combined microbiology/immunology ping list.
Rinderpest has long been gone from the US, but it has the potential to completely wipe out cattle and many wild ungulates in an area . Clearing it from the wild is a huge step. Recalling smallpox, several of the last cases, including the very last ones in London, resulted from laboratory accidents. It’s good they’re trying to reduce those lab numbers but understandable they’re scared to give up their vaccine stocks. BTW, Rinderpest is in the same genus of virus as human measles.
Origin of measles virus: divergence from rinderpest virus between the 11th and 12th centuries.
Ah, the good old days! I had measles as a kid, the proverbial sick as a dog kind of sick - out of school for 3 weeks, lost 10 pounds, down to 50 pounds. (It was weird. Sister Paul Gabriel had given me the worst beating I ever got at school in the morning. IIRC, I was late again, and she blew a gasket. She was literally dribbling my head on my desk like a basketball. Symptoms started that afternoon.)
I had forgotten that rinderpest is linked to famines. I posted about the bug a few years ago. I can't imagine dying of starvation.
"Better to light a candle than curse the darkness." At least this thread doesn't have any ill informed, anti-vaccine rants.
Odd. I was watering the “lawn” yesterday and for some reason thought of rinderpest.
Although history suggests measles evolved a couple centuries earlier than the interesting statistical analysis to which you linked, its likely evolution from rinderpest underscores the importance of monitoring for 'new' infectious diseases. Such spontaneous events DO occur and DO cause major human epidemics, even though our ability to predict them remains imprecise with many false alarms. We can't prevent or deny the risk, but we can learn to manage it.
bmfl
BUMP
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