Too many labs keep dangerous cattle plague: OIE chief
17/04/2013
Member countries committed to destroy their samples or pass them on to a handful of approved high-security laboratories when the world was declared free of rinderpest in 2011. But two years later, 25 still have samples, according to OIE director general Bernard Vallat.
"If you release these materials into the wild, they can touch sensitive species and re-trigger a global animal disease even more so that there are no animals vaccinated anymore," Vallat said. "It would be a disaster."
Rinderpest, or cattle plague, decimated hundreds of millions of cattle across Asia, Europe and Africa. The aim was to leave only a few samples in high-security laboratories for research or for vaccination in case the disease re-emerged.
Scientists argue they need samples for research and would be vulnerable to bioterrorist attack without them.
However, leaving too many samples around, in possibly unsecure locations, was an unacceptable risk, Vallat said. "Some countries may refuse to be transparent due to political ulterior motives."
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