Synopsis (short abstract)Rinderpest, or ‘’cattle plague’’, was an acute, highly contagious disease affecting several species of wild and domestic cloven-hoofed animals, notably cattle and buffalo. It killed millions of cattle over the millennia in Africa, Asia and Europe and was officially declared eradicated in 2011 at conferences of The World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) and of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). At these historical celebrations the Member States of each organiza tion recommended that countries should destroy their rinderpest virus stocks or send them to a FAO-OIE approved Rinderpest Holding Facility to ensure freedom from the disease.