Vetnuus | July 2024 21 Events I WVAC 2024 “We have progressed no further than the local cow doctor”: Bovine pleuropneumonia and the limits of veterinary expertise in colonial Nigeria Oluwaseun O. Williams Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva, Switzerland Livestock diseases constituted grave threats to the British imperial enterprise in Nigeria, as in other parts of the colonial world. They caused immense mortalities and morbidities to different animals—especially cattle, sheep, and goats—that Nigerian people reared for meat, milk and other products. Epizootics also seriously imperilled colonial capitalist exploitation of Nigeria’s livestock resources. Unravelling and suppressing these diseases therefore became critical imperatives for the colonial state, and considerable resources and expertise were deployed to those ends. While the ensuing veterinary schemes achieved outstanding successes at effectively controlling a number of those diseases, particularly rinderpest, trypanosomiasis, and black quarter; there were other instances where the contagions proved to be stubbornly formidable and intractable. This was especially so in the case of contagious bovine pleuropneumonia (CBPP), a highly infectious respiratory disease of cattle that had become endemic in some parts of northern Nigeria during the colonial era. The deadly plague, also known as lung sickness, defied nearly every resolute intervention of the British colonial veterinarians in Nigeria—from laboratory research and diagnosis to vaccine development, as well as immunisation campaigns. As a Gordian knot, CBPP ultimately forced the veterinary authorities to set aside the epistemic hubris of colonial science, so much so that they were exceptionally compelled to reckon with and accommodate native therapeutic strategies. On the strength of extensive archival sources, this paper historicises the daunting perennial challenge that CBPP posed to livestock development in northern Nigeria. In demonstrating how both the colonial veterinary department and the bacterial pathogen demonstrated remarkable resilience in this fateful episode, I argue that the disease impeded the efficacy of colonial veterinary science as a ‘tool of empire’ in northern Nigeria. History of snakebite antivenom research in South Africa Carla H Goede University of Pretoria, Faculty of Veterinary Science, Pretoria, South Africa. Across the African continent, 435 000 to 580 000 snakebites in humans require medical intervention every year, with more than 32 000 fatalities annually. Belatedly, snakebite in humans was declared a neglected tropical disease by the World Health Organization in 2017. During the rainy season of 1891, a village in Lower Cochin-China (now in Vietnam), was invaded by a swarm of poisonous snakes. A snake-charmer in the district caught nineteen of these cobras (Naja tripudians). The administrator of the district sent the snakes that were contained alive in a barrel to the director of a branch of the Pasteur Institute at Saigon, Albert Calmette (1863-1933, French medical doctor). In 1895, Calmette developed the first snake antivenom in the world and subsequently wrote a 400page textbook on snakebite and antivenoms, published in 1908. In South Africa, the production of antivenom was instituted by Watkins-Pitchford (1865-1951, MRCVS London 1899 and Director of the Natal Veterinary Department at the time) at the Allerton Veterinary Laboratory in 1901. He successfully adapted the method of Calmette. Approximately a decade later and prompted by Sir Arnold Theiler (1867-1936), W.H. Andrews (1887-1953, MRCVS London 1908 and Assistant Government Veterinary Bacteriologist at Onderstepoort at the time) conducted extensive experiments on South African venomous snakes. He published a 78-page report in 1912. Despite the long history, the challenges facing antivenom production have remained constant for over 122 years. It is an expensive, laborious process, leading to regular shortages. The significant risks associated with the administration of antivenom and the impractical storage requirements, compound the problem with the treatment of humans and domestic animals. By critically analysing the South African antivenom research spanning over more than a century, we identified unique challenges faced by the South African antivenom industry – the single biggest supplier of antivenom to the African continent A brief historical overview of the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) (founded as the OIE) Gideon K Brückner Past Deputy Director General of the WOAH and Past President of WOAH’s Scientific Commission for Animal Diseases, Somerset West, South Africa The devastating effects of rinderpest in Europe in the 18th century resulted in a call to the Deans of Veterinary Faculties in Europe for an International Veterinary Congress in 1863 to ‘define the rules of prevention of contagious and epizootic diseases. This vision only materialised 60 years later, when rinderpest was re-introduced into Europe resulting in a meeting of forty-two states, mainly from Europe, heeded the call that an International Office of Epizootics (OIE) for the control of infectious animal diseases be created and set up in Paris. On 25 January 1924, twenty-eight states signed an International Agreement to establish the OIE as an autonomous intergovernmental international organisation with its finances and activities governed by its own constitutional texts. The headquarters of the OIE was established during this time in Paris in the Hôtel de Prony and it has remained the headquarters of the OIE ever since. It is thus very opportune, and a great honour, that at this WVA Conference in Cape Town, South Africa, we are also privileged to participate in the centenary celebrations of the WOAH. The WOAH is today one of the oldest intergovernmental organisations together with the United Nations (established in 1945), the WHO (1948), FAO (1946) and WTO (1994). Today the WOAH with its 182 member countries, is recognised as the only reference organisation by the World Trade Organization (WTO) for international animal health standards. It was unanimously decided in 2020, to change the logo and name of the OIE, to the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) to reflect its wider scope of responsibilities in global animal health.
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