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Kenya rules out outbreak of rinderpest disease

Xinhua, November 26, 2016 Adjust font size:

The Kenyan government on Friday refuted reports of an outbreak of rinderpest disease in the country as well as threat from neighboring Tanzania.

Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries Cabinet Secretary Willy Bett said Kenya has an active and passive surveillance program that ensures there is no re-emergence of rinderpest in the country, while keeping a high level of alertness.

"This surveillance program also ensures that other important trans-boundary animal diseases are controlled to safeguard our livestock herds and trade," Bett said in a statement issued in Nairobi.

The local media had reported there was a possible outbreak of the rinderpest disease that affects livestock in Kenya.

The reports said the disease has already killed thousands of livestock in neighboring Tanzania, with the government on high alert over a possible occurrence in Kenya.

However, Bett said rinderpest, a devastating contagious animal disease also known as cattle plague which affects cloven hoofed animals mainly cattle and buffaloes, was successfully eradicated the world over in 2011.

Kenya had earlier eradicated the disease in 2009 and a certificate issued to that effect by the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE).

Bett said an outbreak of anthrax in wild animals in Tanzania has elicited rumors to the effect that it's an outbreak of rinderpest. The rumor has attracted a lot of media attention in Kenya.

"We, however, have official confirmation from the veterinary authorities in Tanzania that the outbreak was indeed anthrax and not rinderpest," Bett said.

Rinderpest is one of the world's deadliest livestock disease capable of clearing 90 percent of livestock in just 10-15 days.

The disease's symptoms in cattle, goats and sheep includes fever, erosive lesions in the mouth, discharge from the nose and eyes, profuse diarrhea, and dehydration, often leading to death.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) declared the world was free from rinderpest but is still found in small cases in Africa. Endit