A very positive destruction

摘要

The eradication of a disease through human intervention has happened twice in history.The first,and arguably the better-known case,was smallpox in 1980.The second was rinderpest;a fatal disease of cattle which had devastated livestock populations since the domestication of cattle.According to Scott and Provost1,rinderpest was’the most dreaded bovine plague known,belonging to a select group of notorious infectious diseases that have changed the course of history! Outbreaks of rinderpest were recorded in Europe,Asia,Africa,the Americas and Australia.One of the most devastating pandemics started in Ethiopia in 1884 where domestic cattle were infected through cattle imported from India.The virus not only wiped out approximately 90% of the cattle population(e.g.typhus,cholera,sleeping sickness),leading to one of the most catastrophic natural disasters ever in African history.