Prof. Dirk Pfeiffer (Chair Professor of One Health at the College of Veterinary Medicine and Life Sciences and Director of the Centre for Applied One Health Research and Policy Advice) is part of an international team of researchers from CityU, the Royal Veterinary College (RVC, University of London), the French agricultural research and international cooperation organization CIRAD and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), which investigated the spread of Peste des Petits Ruminants (PPR).

PPR, also known as goat plague, is a deadly disease affecting goats and sheep and is targeted for global eradication within the next 15 years as it represents a major burden for livestock farmers across Africa and Asia.

The researchers, led by Dr Guillaume Fournié of the RVC, developed a model for use in PPR eradication, which suggests that repeated vaccination campaigns specifically targeting sub-populations acting as viral reservoirs would be the most effective way of eradicating the disease.

An interview with Prof. Pfeiffer about this exciting research is available here and the research article titled “Transmission and the elimination of peste des petits ruminants in Ethiopia: Insights from a dynamic model”, published in the latest issue of the US science journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, can be accessed here.