Although rinderpest virus no longer circulates amongst animals, the world remains vulnerable to a reoccurrence of the disease due to biological samples and materials which may contain the virus still being stored in premises across the world.
The best way to protect your country and the world at large, from a reoccurrence of rinderpest is to not store the virus. Laboratories keeping rinderpest virus-containing materials stocks need to ensure safe destruction of potential rinderpest virus containing materials or to safely transfer them into one of the Rinderpest Holding Facilities approved by the OIE and FAO.
You can be guided step by step thanks to the Standard Operating Procedures developed by the OIE and FAO and tools of the campaign dedicated to laboratories.
Do you have a lethal weapon in your freezer?
Rinderpest virus-containing material or RVCM not only includes live and vaccine strains of the rinderpest virus but also tissues, sera and other clinical material from infected or suspect animals as well as diagnostic material containing or encoding live virus.
DO YOU KNOW YOUR STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURES FOR RVCM HANDLING?
Test your knowledge by playing the Rinderpest game.
It simulates a resurgence of Rinderpest, and as a laboratory expert, you will travel the world to unravel the truth concerning the source of the rinderpest outbreak.
Enter the laboratory scenario and help laboratories manage and dispose of their RVCM in order to avoid the escape of the virus.
WHAT IS RINDERPEST VIRUS CONTAINING MATERIAL (RVCM)?
RVCM includes:
- Field and laboratory strains of Rinderpest virus.
- Vaccine strains of the rinderpest virus (including vaccine stocks).
- Tissues, sera and other clinical material from infected or suspect animals.
- Diagnostic material containing or encoding live virus.
- Recombinant morbilliviruses (segmented or non-segmented) containing unique rinderpest virus nucleic acid or amino acid sequences.
- Full-length genomic material including virus RNA and cDNA copies of virus RNA. However, RVCM does not include: Sub-genomic fragments of morbillivirus nucleic acid that are not capable of being incorporated in a replicating morbillivirus or morbillivirus-like virus.
However, RVCM does not include:
Sub-genomic fragments of morbillivirus nucleic acid that are not capable of being incorporated in a replicating morbillivirus or morbillivirus-like virus
WHAT IS AN APPROVED FACILITY (RHF)?
The only facilities that can now handle RVCM are FAO-OIE approved Rinderpest Holding Facilities (RHF). There are two categories: one for handling and storing all non-vaccine RVCM (category A RHF) and one for all vaccine RVCM (category B RHF).
There are currently four Category A RHF:
- African Union Pan African Veterinary Vaccine Centre (AU-PANVAC), Debre-Zeit, Ethiopia
- High Containment Facilities of Exotic Diseases Research Station, National Institute of Animal Health, Kodaira, Tokyo, Japan
- USDA-APHIS, Foreign Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory (FADDL), Plum Island, New York, USA
- The Pirbright Institute, United Kingdom
There are currently two Category B RHF:
- African Union Pan African Veterinary Vaccine Centre (AU-PANVAC), Debre-Zeit, Ethiopia
- Building for Safety Evaluation Research, Production Center for Biologicals; Building for Biologics Research and Development (storage), National Institute of Animal Health, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan
