Contagious Bovine Pleuropneumonia: A Passage to India.

Simple Summary: With the eradication of rinderpest in 1995, contagious bovine pleuropneumonia (CBPP), the other great historical plague of cattle, has become arguably the most important bovine disease in sub-Saharan Africa affecting cattle in over 25 countries. CBPP, caused by the small bacterium Mycoplasma mycoides subsp. mycoides, is a contagious disease of cattle mainly affecting the lungs, leading to high morbidity and mortality. During the 19th and 20th centuries, it affected all cattle-rearing continents, but unlike its introduction into the USA, Africa and Australia from Europe, its origins in Asia are far from clear. This review examines the potential routes that cattle affected with CBPP may have taken, most probably from Australia into China and ultimately into the Indian province of Assam where outbreaks in the mid-20th century were unambiguously reported. An examination of reports contemporary to the outbreaks together with recent molecular analysis suggests that CBPP was introduced to India with affected cattle and buffalo from neighbouring countries, most likely China which was severely infected during this period. Evidence is discussed that CBPP may continue to plague cattle in parts of Asia. The World Organization for Animal Health (WOAH)-listed contagious bovine pleuropneumonia (CBPP) emerged first in Europe and then spread to Eastern Asia, including Japan and China, from the Northern Territories of Australia at the end of the 19th century. Its route to India, however, is less well known as there is little evidence for large importations of cattle from Australia. The lack of accurate diagnostic tests at this time meant veterinary authorities relied solely on clinical and pathological signs, many of which were non-specific. Consequently, any diagnoses of CBPP reported in the early 20th century must be viewed with caution. More convincing reports of CBPP confirmed by laboratory tests were made in the 1930s and 1940s in the Indian state of Assam. Eradication campaigns began in the 1940s with immunizations of live attenuated vaccines and then more comprehensively in the 1950s and 1960s, supplemented with serological screening and the establishment of quarantine centres at international borders. The last case of CBPP, reported to WOAH, was seen in 1990, but the launch of a new awareness campaign in Assam in 2002 and recent reports of the disease in Pakistan suggests the disease has persisted in the Indian subcontinent well into the 21st century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]