Rinderpest Disease free Pakistan is a target, near to be achieved by the Livestock Department

Among the domestic animals Cattle, domestic buffalo, yaks, Sheep and Goat, camels and pigs are Rinderpest susceptible and may be affected to a greater or lesser degree. In addition a number of wildlife species including bull, various species of Deer and Gazelle may also be affected by Rinderpest Disease.

The Global Rinderpest Eradication Programme (GREP) is a time-bound programme to eliminate Rinderpest from the world by the year 2010. Strategies have been devised and    programmes implemented to reduce the clinical incidence of Rinderpest to zero. limination of disease and infection will be confirmed by statistically valid active disease surveillance programmes.

The Global Rinderpest Eradication Programme has shown that: 

1. National Rinderpest campaigns have been successful

2. Rinderpest is now confined to defined foci in Eastern Africa, South and West Asia

3. An outbreak of Rinderpest outside the known endemic foci should be treating as  Emergency

4. Mass vaccination of national/regional herds is no longer necessary

5. GREP strategy everywhere should emphasize on Early Warning, Early Reaction, Contingency Planning and National Commitment to the OIE pathway.

Rinderpest eradication by 2010:

Within the next decade there is a very real prospect that   Rinderpest will become, like smallpox in humans, a disease of the past. Today, as we enter a new millennium, progress made by the Global Rinderpest Eradication Programme (GREP), has limited the disease to a small number of sites in eastern Africa, South Asia and the Middle East. But the specter of cattle plague, with its devastating epidemics of the past, continues to be a threat as long as these few small areas harbor Rinderpest. So,   intensified action for these remaining pockets of Rinderpest infection is being promoted and co-coordinated by FAO under GREP.

Background: 
The control of Rinderpest to the point we are at today has been a remarkable triumph for veterinary science and national commitment but it has not been achieved without setbacks. As recently as the 1980s, Rinderpest raged across Africa, and this   occurred at a time when the disease was thought to have been beaten after a very successful international vaccination   campaign through the 1960s and 1970s. But with hindsight, the campaign stopped too soon and, from small remaining pockets of infection, the disease escaped. Countries were not prepared, the cattle vulnerable and the cattle plague spread rapidly, just as it had nearly a century before, when the majority of domestic cattle and susceptible wildlife were killed in a broad swathe across sub-Saharan Africa. A similar pattern of Rinderpest   epidemics was also experienced in Asia in the 1980s when the     disease spread back from South Asia to borders of Europe. The lesson of these events is that near eradication is not good enough.

What is The OIE Pathway? 
The current goal of Rinderpest control is to achieve freedom of countries and later of entire world regions from Rinderpest with the ultimate aim of achieving global eradication. It is therefore necessary to institute a system for verifying the steps towards these short and long term aims, and to assist countries, which wish to trade in livestock and livestock products, but face difficulties due to the presence or past occurrence of Rinderpest. This system, elaborated during the expert consultation held in Paris (August 1989) on Rinderpest Surveillance Systems (described in the document “Recommended Standards for epidemiological surveillance systems for Rinderpest”), has since become informally but widely known as the OIE PATHWAY. These standards were adopted by the 66th general session of    the OIE  (Office International des Epizooties) and now form part of the International Animal Health Code,  section 4.5.1.1, page   379 (OIE, 1998).

In order to maintain this status, the country must continue to operate an efficient disease reporting system, which would detect Rinderpest if it occurred. 

Status of some  Asian countries regarding Rinderpest Disease

Status of Pakistan:

Pakistan is on the way to get the Rinderpest Disease free status from OIE in near future. The Global Rinderpest Eradication Program was started in 1998 with the objective to eradicate the disease since 2010. The activities in this regard are in progress with the coordination of Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of United Nation (UN). Sero Surveillance and Disease Surveillance for the Transboundry Animal Diseases in Pakistan are underway by the trained veterinary staff with efficient disease reporting system. In year 2000 the vaccination against Rinderpest disease was stopped and in January, 2003 Pakistan declared it self Rinderpest Disease Free country provisionally. Currently Pakistan is provisionally Rinderpest Disease Free country since 2003 and with the active disease, sero surveillance program with favorable surveillance results after 3 more years, Pakistan will be declared Rinderpest Disease Free Country, Insha Allah.