Land, farming and livestock
Rinderpest in Somalia: the last stand of cattle plague
Rinderpest, or cattle plague, was the second disease ever wiped out worldwide, after smallpox. Its last hiding place was the 'Somali ecosystem' of southern Somalia, north-eastern Kenya and south-eastern Ethiopia, where the last evidence of the virus dates to 2001. Somali vets and partners vaccinated and tested cattle in Gedo and the Juba regions for over a decade. The OIE recognised Somalia as free of rinderpest in 2010, and the world was declared free in 2011.
What rinderpest was
Rinderpest was a viral disease of cattle, buffalo and other cloven-hoofed animals that killed huge numbers of animals across Africa, Asia and Europe. On 25 May 2011 the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE, now WOAH) recognised the last eight countries as free, and the FAO followed in June 2011, making it the second disease in history wiped out after smallpox (WOAH, Rinderpest).
The Somali ecosystem
The disease's last refuge was the Somali ecosystem: south-eastern Ethiopia, north-eastern Kenya and Somalia. It was the last place rinderpest was diagnosed, in 2001, in the part of the ecosystem inside Kenya (FAO, EMPRES Transboundary Animal Diseases Bulletin 38, 2011).
A mild form of the virus was found in Tsavo East National Park in Kenya in 1994. Genetic tests showed it belonged to the "African type 2" lineage, and experts suspected it had circulated unseen in north-eastern Kenya and the Trans Juba area of southern Somalia (same source). Because the mild strain caused few clear signs, it was hard to find.
The work inside Somalia
After 1991, rinderpest was a target of the livestock vaccination and veterinary training that aid agencies ran in Somalia. The Italian NGO Terra Nuova, one of 12 international NGOs in the programme, trained Somali vets and later worked in Gedo, Lower Juba and Middle Juba, the regions suspected of holding the last cases (FAO, EMPRES 38).
Its work from 1996 to 2009, as described in the bulletin:
- Searching for disease, including asking herders what they had seen.
- 1,608 sites sampled in random surveys from September 2002 to November 2007, mostly in central and southern Somalia, with 28,700 blood samples, nearly all from cattle and 97 from warthogs.
- 1,425 specimens taken to test for the virus, and more than 1,300 questionnaires answered by herders.
- Vaccination of cattle at risk with a heat-stable vaccine from the Botswana Vaccine Institute, by trained Somali teams.
- Training Somali vets and building links with local authorities and later the Somali Veterinary Authority.
The bulletin is dedicated in part to Manmohan Bogal, killed while supervising a rinderpest vaccination campaign in Gedo on 26 January 1999.
Freedom
The Somali Ecosystem Rinderpest Eradication Coordination Unit (SERECU) linked the vets of Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia from January 2006 to December 2010, with money from the African Union's PACE programme, FAO, AU-IBAR and the EU (FAO, EMPRES 38). The data gathered went into the dossier of the Somali Veterinary Authority, and the OIE recognised Somalia as officially free from rinderpest in 2010 (same source).
Related pages
Sources
- WOAH, Rinderpest · woah.org
- FAO, EMPRES Transboundary Animal Diseases Bulletin 38, 2011 · fao.org
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Where this matters
- Bu'aale (Buale) and Middle JubaMiddle Juba is a farming region on the Juba river in the south, with about 447,000 people.
- Kismaayo (Kismayo) and Lower JubaLower Juba is the far southern region on the border with Kenya, with the port city of Kismayo (Kismaayo) as its capital and about 1.2 million people.
Same era
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- Birmingham (Somali diaspora)About 17,000 to 21,600 Somalis live in Birmingham (Census 2021), mostly in Nechells, Newtown, Small Heath and Alum Rock. History, work, health and ties home.
- Bristol (Somali diaspora)9,167 people in Bristol identified as Somali or Somalilander in Census 2021, the city's largest minority group. Where they live, work, housing, leaders and ties home.
- Calgary, Alberta, Canada2,845 people of Somali origin lived in Calgary at the 2021 Census, plus 890 in Brooks. How they came, who serves them and what they face.
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- DjiboutiAbout 13,900 refugees from Somalia live in Djibouti (Aug 2026): numbers since 1990, Ali Addeh, Holl-Holl, the 2017 refugee law, Arta 2000 and 2025 returns.
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