Amanda Kay McVety has written the first history of the international effort to eradicate rinderpest - a devastating cattle disease - which began in the 1940s and ended in 2011. Rinderpest is the only other disease besides smallpox to have been eradicated, but very few people in the United States know about it, because it did not infect humans and never broke out in North America. In other parts of the world, however, rinderpest was a serious economic and social burden and the struggle against it was a critical part of the effort to fight poverty and hunger globally. McVety follows the deployment of rinderpest vaccines around the globe, exploring the role of the environment in the understanding of development, internationalism, and national security. She expands the standard Cold War narratives to show how these concepts were framed not only by economic and political concerns, but also by biological ones.

Rinderpest and Peste des Petits Ruminants tells the story of how, by the year 2010, scientists are set to globally eradicate one of the great historic plagues that has ravaged human livestock for centuries. Descriptions of the disease in Europe date back to the 4th century and it was regularly re-introduced following wars and other civil unrest until late in the 19th century. It was introduced with devastating effect into Africa towards the end of the 19th century and is now widespread across sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and Southern Asia. Its causative agent, rinderpest virus, a morbillivirus very closely related to human measles virus, decimates the cattle population along with those of other susceptible domestic ruminants and many wildlife species wherever it is present. - The history of Rinderpest including the history of vaccines and vaccination - Details other Morbillaviruses - Epidemiology and transmission of Rinderpest

In this volume the contributors chronicle the ancient history of a plague that has ravaged livestock around the world for centuries, and reveal how scientists aim to have eradicated the disease entirely by the year 2010.

Impact of chemoprophylactic control of trypanosomosis in coastal Kenya; Economic impact of N'Dama cattle in tsetse-affected areas of Zaire, Togo, Ethiopia and The Gambia; Adoption of dairy feeding management in the Ethiopian highlands; Costs and benefits of alternative theileriosis control strategies in Zimbabwe; Impacts of east coast fever immunisation in coastal and highland Kenya; Fodder bank adoption in northern Nigeria; Impact of land tenure on adoption of alley farming in West Africa; Impact of crossbred dairy-draft technology in Ethiopia; Impact of livestock on alley farming systems in West Africa; Impact of dairy intensification on Africa peri-urban milk production systems; Constraints to use of animal traction in semi-arid West Africa; Impacts of dairy intensification on nutrition and health in coastal Kenya; Economic impact of theileriosis and its control in Africa.