The global eradication of peste des petits ruminants (PPR) within 15 years-is this a pipe dream?

Gordon Scott did much to inspire the eradication of rinderpest, probably the most outstanding veterinary achievement of the twentieth century, and one currently inspiring is the proposed eradication of peste des petits ruminants (PPR), a disease of sheep and goats caused by a closely related Morbillivirus. The evolution and geographic spread of PPR along with its epidemiological characteristics are discussed and related to ways in which its spread can be reduced through the provision of diagnostic aids to sanitary livestock movement at local level. Taking a historical look at rinderpest eradication, it was shown that much could be achieved using a legislation-backed zoosanitary approach or, once developed, the build up of herd immunities in isolated populations. As the final cap to this (circa), two hundred-year-long process, major national and internationally funded vaccination programmes falling within the informal coordinatorship of the OIE and FAO showed that final eradication could be achieved with remarkable rapidity if the seat of infection was known and if appropriate national and international interventions were aimed at ending virus transmission. Were such international cooperation to be forthcoming once more, the understanding, tools and experiences now on offer suggest that PPR could be controlled and eradicated far more rapidly than rinderpest.