1. In 1887, the rinderpest virus was accidentally imported in livestock brought by an Italian expeditionary force to Eritrea.

2. 28 Cause: foot and mouth disease (aftosa) or rinderpest, or the bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) disease areas.

3. In the past, numbers of African buffaloes suffered their most severe collapse during the great rinderpest epidemic of the 1890s, which, coupled with pleuro-pneumonia, caused mortalities as high as 95% among livestock and wild ungulates.