Livestock Plagues From Eradication to Spread

The starting point because it is the endmark: a lethal cattle and buffalo virus behind a late nineteenth century African pandemic that killed the great majority of the continent's cattle and contributed to famine, declared eradicated in 2011 after a decades long vaccination campaign.

A bacterial lung disease caused by Mycoplasma mycoides that can kill within weeks. Slaughter and movement control removed it from most regions, yet it remains endemic across much of sub-Saharan Africa, showing a partial rather than complete victory.

Also called hog cholera. Vaccination and slaughter programs eradicated it from North America and much of Western Europe in the twentieth century, but it persists in parts of Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe, and an outbreak in a free country triggers immediate trade bans.

A viral disease of sheep and goats related to rinderpest and measles, with mortality up to 90 percent in severe outbreaks. Its international eradication campaign is explicitly modeled on the rinderpest program, so the path now turns from past success to current effort.

Cattle, pigs, sheep and goats suffer fever and blisters, but the larger story is economic: a single outbreak triggers severe trade restrictions, and the United Kingdom's 2001 epidemic led to the culling of millions of animals and billions in losses.

A fatal prion disease of cattle linked to feeding cattle protein from infected animal remains. The United Kingdom epidemic and its transmission to humans as variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease brought bans on feeding ruminant derived protein to ruminants and lasting changes in food safety regulation.

Mortality often approaches 100 percent in acute outbreaks and no approved vaccine is in widespread commercial use. Endemic in parts of Africa for a century, it reached Eastern Europe in 2007 and China and much of East and Southeast Asia from 2018, disrupting global pork supply.

Poultry flocks suffer sudden high mortality and outbreaks are contained by mass culling. The H5N1 lineage has caused unprecedented losses since 2020, with spillover into mammals including dairy cattle in the United States from 2024.

A cattle and water buffalo virus spread by biting insects that causes skin nodules, lower milk yield and damaged hides. Historically confined to Africa, it spread into the Middle East, Southeastern Europe and much of Asia from the 2010s, and newly affected countries responded with large vaccination campaigns.

The closing stop shows range change: a midge borne virus of sheep, cattle and other ruminants, historically limited mainly to warmer regions, has spread into northern Europe this century as midge ranges shift, bringing livestock losses and trade restrictions.