Peste des petits ruminants in China since its first outbreak in 2007: A 10-year review

Abstract

Peste des petits ruminants (PPR) is a highly infectious disease of small ruminants and caused by small ruminant morbillivirus (SRMV), formerly called peste-des-petits-ruminants virus (PPRV). This disease is circulating in Africa (except most countries in southern Africa), the Arabian Peninsula, the Middle East, and Central, East and South-East Asia. Peste des petits ruminants is still regarded as an exotic disease in China, where its first outbreak was reported in the Ngari region of Tibet in 2007, but effectively controlled by slaughter, vaccination and animal movement restriction in PPR-infected areas. However, PPR re-emerged in Xinjiang of China in December 2013, rapidly spread into much of China in the first half of 2014, but since then was substantially inhibited countrywide. Phylogenetic analysis shows that SRMVs from China share the highest homology with others from its neighbouring countries, possibly indicating the transboundary transmission of SRMVs. In 2015, a national eradication program for PPR was issued and has been being implemented in China, expecting to achieve a PPR-eradicating aim countrywide by 2020. Here, we reviewed a 10-year history (2007-2017) of PPR in China, including two major outbreaks, its infection in wild species, development of diagnostics and vaccines, and implementation of the national eradication program.

Spatio‐temporal analysis of peste des petits ruminants outbreaks in PR China (2013–2018): Updates based on the newest data

“…In addition to the movement of live animals, excretions from PPR‐infected herds were a vector for disease transmission to other places via the contaminated vehicles used for transport. This resulted in the post‐trading transport of livestock being considered a major route for transmission of the disease (Liu et al, ).…”

“…A lack of mandatory vaccination made the rest of the country quite vulnerable to PPR infection. Therefore, the absence of immunoprotection under that policy was understood to be a major cause of the rapid transmission of PPR across the country in 2014 (Liu et al, ).…”

Peste des Petits Ruminants ( PPR ) virus serological surveillance in goats in Lao PDR : Issues for disease eradication in a low‐resource disease‐free setting

“…The main risk of PPRV to Laos is movement of goats across borders (Balamurugan, Hemadri, et al., ; Dhar et al., ; Kumar et al., ). The outbreak in China during 2013‐14 affected 256 counties including Yunnan, a border province with Laos (Li et al., ; Liu et al., ; Wu et al., ). It is possible that the lack of border security plus illegal movement of animals between countries in the region may spread PPR into Laos and beyond into other ASEAN countries, such as Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and Malaysia.…”

“…The second outbreak occurred in Xienjuang in 2013‐14. This outbreak spread to 32 other counties, including an outbreak in Yunnan on the northern Lao border, a thoroughfare for trade between the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries (Li et al., ; Liu et al., ; Wu et al., ). PPR lineage studies suggest this outbreak was likely due to transboundary movement of animals into China rather than a re‐emergence of the disease from Chinese herds (Wu et al., ).…”

“…PPRV Lineage III has also been described in the Middle East (OIE, 2016). The spread of PPR is considered to be a result of transboundary movement of small ruminants (Dhar et al, 2002;Kumar et al, 2014;Liu et al, 2018), with the rapid trading of small ruminants also contributing to the propagation of outbreaks (Balamurugan, Das et al, 2014).…”