Free Republic

QUEENSLAND vet Alister Rodgers lost his battle with the lethal Hendra virus overnight, dying after two weeks in a coma. State Health Minister Paul Lucas today sent his deepest sympathies to Dr Rodgers' widow, Linda, and children Courtney and Duncan. “This is a terrible tragedy for his family and they are being supported by the staff of Princess Alexandra Hospital,” Mr Lucas told Parliament this morning. Dr Rodgers, of the Rockhampton Veterinary Clinic, was infected with the virus when he treated a sick filly - thought at the time to be suffering from snakebite - at the J4S stud in...

Rinderpest will be only the second disease to be wiped out. Rinderpest, the world's most devastating cattle disease, will be declared eradicated within 18 months, according to world health bodies. The effort will make it only the second disease to be wiped from the globe — the first was smallpox, eradicated in 1980. "Rinderpest tops the list of killer diseases [in animals]," says Juan Lubroth, chief veterinary officer for the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in Rome. It not only kills cattle and other wildlife, it also causes famines when people in developing countries lose the...