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Rinderpest Portal

Global freedom     What is rinderpest?     Eradication programmes     Post-eradication phase   International collaboration     Media resources

Post eradication phase

With the infection eradicated both from livestock and wildlife, the OIE moves on to a post-eradication era with new challenges lying ahead.

Maintaining global freedom from rinderpest

Although the rinderpest virus no longer circulates amongst live animals, virus stocks, vaccines and biologic samples are still present in around 20 laboratories across the world, mainly for the production of vaccines in the event the disease were to reappear due to an accident or an act of bioterrorism.

Until these potential sources of rinderpest virus are either safely destroyed or transferred to one of the high –containment facilities, approved by OIE and FAO, the world remains at risk of a reoccurrence of rinderpest.

In order to not forget the threat of RPV the OIE has developped a new rinderpest vigilance campaign.

The purpose of the campaign is to make sure that everyone involved in animal health is fully aware of rinderpest challenges and of the role that they still have to play in the post-eradication era, to protect this achievement.

The objective of the campaign are:  to ensure that rinderpest occupies an appropriate place in veterinary education curricula; to maintain professional veterinary knowledge of rinderpest to enable effective surveillance for rapid detection, notification and response in case of a resurgence of rinderpest; To guide laboratories to get rid of any rinderpest virus-containing material stocks.

>>> Discover the campaign <<<

Global commitment from Member Countries

All 180 OIE Member Countries signed up to a Resolution at the OIE General Session in May 2011, committing themselves to destroy remaining virus or safely store them in a minimum number of approved high containment laboratories; to remain vigilant to reoccurrences of the disease; and to cease all unapproved research activities. A parallel resolution was adopted by FAO in June 2011. The OIE and FAO are working to ensure that these actions are urgently and fully implemented to prevent this dreadful disease from resurfacing.

The OIE, in collaboration with the FAO and with Member Countries, is committed to ensuring that the process is carried out in a reliable and transparent manner.

Designation of facilities as approved for holding rinderpest virus containing material

In May 2019 at the OIE General Session, the OIE World Assembly of Delegates adopted resolutions to maintain the designation of the following facilities as approved for holding rinderpest virus containing material (subject to re-evaluation every 3 years). 

A) Rinderpest Holding Facility for storing rinderpest virus containing material, excluding vaccine stocks

  1. African Union Pan African Veterinary Vaccine Centre (AU-PANVAC), Debre-Zeit, Ethiopia.
  2. Centre de coopération internationale en recherche agronomique pour le développement (CIRAD), Montpellier, France
  3. China Institute of Veterinary Drug Control/China Veterinary Culture Collection Center (IVDC), Beijing, China
  4. High Containment Facilities of Exotic Diseases Research Station, National Institute of Animal Health, Kodaira, Tokyo, Japan. 
  5. USDA-APHIS, Foreign Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory (FADDL), Plum Island, New York, United States of America.
  6. The Pirbright Institute, United Kingdom.

B) Rinderpest Vaccine Holding Facility for storing only manufactured vaccines, vaccine stocks and material solely for their production:

  1. Pan African Veterinary Vaccine Centre African Union (AU-PANVAC), Debre-Zeit, Ethiopia
  2. Building for Safety Evaluation Research, Production Center for Biologicals; Building for Biologics Research and Development (storage), National Institute of Animal Health, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan.
  3. Centre de coopération internationale en recherche agronomique pour le développement (CIRAD), Montpellier, France
  4. China Institute of Veterinary Drug Control/China Veterinary Culture Collection Center (IVDC), Beijing, China

OIE Resolutions

adopted during OIE General Sessions (GS)

  • Derogation allowing the regulated movement of attenuated vaccine seed stock out of a BSL3 facility to an FAO-OIE approved facility (Amendment to Resolution No.18)

Global freedom     What is rinderpest?     Eradication programmes     Post-eradication phase      International collaboration     Media resources

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