Peste des petits ruminants – crucial challenges for the successful disease eradication

Abstract

Peste des petits ruminants (PPR) is a highly infectious and economically important, viral disease of small ruminants caused by the peste des petits ruminants virus (PPRV), which belongs to the genus Morbilivirus in the family Paramyxoviridae. PPR control is mostly achieved through vaccination and/or slaughter of susceptible animals coupled with clinical or laboratory-based diagnosis. The control and eventual eradication of PPR is now one of the top priorities for the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE). In April 2015, the international community agreed on a global strategy for PPR eradication, setting 2030 as a target date for the elimination of the disease. There is a strong and lasting international consensus to eradicate PPR in order to protect the livelihoods of the world’s poorest populations. There are several crucial challenges to the eradication campaign programme: understanding small ruminant production, facilitating research to support the eradication campaign, improvement of laboratory diagnostics, optimizing vaccine delivery and novel vaccines, improving epidemiological understanding of the virus, defining infection of wildlife and other species, developing better control and animal movement, heightening serological monitoring, understanding socio-economic impact, and garnering funding and political actions.