Secure future for rinderpest virus
Following the worldwide eradication of the rinderpest disease last year, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) have taken steps to control storage of the virus.
The FAO and OIE have had a global moratorium passed, asking countries belonging to them to destroy their remaining stocks of rinderpest or, if approved by the organisations, to secure them in high-containment laboratories.
A limited number of samples must remain in order to produce vaccines and to conduct research that the organisations have approved. However, with more than 40 laboratories around the world storing samples of the virus, there would have been unnecessary risk of a future outbreak.
'Virus samples must be kept safely or otherwise they should be destroyed. We must remain vigilant so that rinderpest remains a disease of the past,' said Juan Lubroth, chief veterinary officer of the FAO.
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