It may not have the sort of impact that eliminating a human disease such as polio does, but The Global Rinderpest Eradication Programme plans on eliminating the bovine disease worldwide by 2010. Rinderpest is a highly infectious virus that can quickly kill huge numbers of cattle and buffalo very quickly. In the 1890s an outbreak was estimated to have wiped out 80 to 90 percent of all cattle in sub-Saharan Africa, and a more recent outbreak in 1982-84 in Africa cost an estimated $500 million.
Currently the eradication effort plans to concentrate on wiping out the last remaining pockets of rinderpest infection in the world — mostly in southeastern Sudan, southern Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan, and Iraq. Following that will be several years of intensive surveillance to ensure that the disease is truly wiped out, with quick responses to any remaining outbreaks bringing quick, intensive vaccination efforts.
In 2002 cessation of rinderpest vaccination will commence and by 2010, if everything goes well, a declaration of the elimination of the rinderpest vaccination certified.
Source:
Way clear for global rinderpest eradication. Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, June 20, 2000.