Walter Plowright

Walter Plowright CMG, FRS, FRCVS (born July 10, 1923 in Holbeach , Lincolnshire - † February 19, 2010 ) was a British veterinarian , pathologist , microbiologist and parasitologist who developed a viable vaccine against rinderpest in the 1960s .

biography

Studies and professional career

After attending the grammar schools of Moulton and Spalding in Lincolnshire , he studied veterinary medicine at the Royal Veterinary College (RVC) of the University of London during World War II . In 1944 he was called up for military service with the British Army Veterinary Corps (Royal Army Veterinary Corps) and served in Kenya . His experiences and experiences there shaped his later career. After completing his military service, he returned to Great Britain in 1948 and began working as a lecturer at the RVC. However, a short time later he entered the veterinary service of the then Ministry for the Colonies ( Colonial Office ) for which he returned to Kenya in 1950. First he worked at the Veterinary Research Laboratory in Kabete (Kenya) and then in 1953 at the Federal Veterinary Laboratory in Vom (Nigeria).

1956 he was appointed head of the Department of Pathology of the East African Research Laboratory (East African Research Laboratory (EAVRO)) in Mugaga (Kenya). During this activity until 1971, the vaccine against rinderpest was also developed. Since 1964, he has also worked at the Animal Virus Research Institute in Pirbright , Surrey .

Rinderpest vaccine discovery and effects

Walter Plowright developed a vaccine against rinderpest in the 1960s , which effectively eradicated a disease that had devastated cattle herds around the world. After launching mass vaccination programs in developing countries , he was celebrated by cattle farms whose livestock were wiped out by the rinderpest virus . Ultimately, the vaccine also greatly strengthened the global supply of meat and dairy products .

On October 15, 2010, the Director General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) announced that the rinderpest had been eradicated thanks to the coordinated measures under the GREP. The official determination of the eradication took place on May 25, 2011. This is the second time in history that an infectious disease has been eradicated since smallpox .

Plowright was a veterinarian and scientific researcher who battled viral infection with a simple, affordable, and easy-to-administer vaccine. A single dose of his Tissue Culture Rinderpest Vaccine (TCRV) resulted in lasting immunity .

He was also recognized for the way he developed the test method and application of the rinderpest vaccine. These successful techniques were later repeated in the development of vaccines against Orf and lumpy skin disease .

Through the development of the vaccine, Plowright ultimately also contributed to the development of veterinary science itself, a discipline whose justification was largely shaped by the fear of rinderpest, which led to massive cattle deaths in Europe well into the 19th century . His work had an important influence on research into other viral diseases such as the ASF virus , the malignant catarrhal fever , orthopox viruses and the herpes simplex virus .

In addition to laboratory development of the vaccine, which was one of the earliest examples of a vaccine developed by tissue culture , Plowright made regular and extensive field trips to vaccinate thousands of cattle to test the effectiveness of TCRV. He also transferred this to wildebeest , which were probably carriers of the disease, but animals that were not easy to treat.

Although rinderpest had long been displaced from most of Europe, rinderpest established itself in Africa at the beginning of the 20th century at devastating proportions and after the infestation wiped out a herd of up to 90 percent, while the rest of the herd became sickly and unproductive. When on livestock -based farms , a disease outbreak could famine and economic depression cause as in the early 1980s as the rinderpest in economic losses of about 2 billion US dollars in Nigeria led. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) predicted that eradication of the virus would have cost less than $ 3 million because of the effectiveness and low cost of TCRV.

Against this background of the low investment in the production of TRCV, the FAO calculated additional food production of 47 billion US dollars in Africa and 289 billion US dollars in India . In addition, the FAO calculated an additional production of 70 million tons of beef and one billion tons of dairy products in developing countries as a result of the eradication of rinderpest.

Later activities and awards

In 1971 he returned to the UK for good after being appointed Professor of Microbiology and Parasitology at the RVC. From 1978 to 1981 he was director of the microbiology department at the Institute for Animal Virus Research in Compton (Berkshire) .

For his far-reaching work, which was not only of a scientific nature, but also included his humanitarian achievements, he has received several awards, including becoming Companion of the Order of St. Michael and St. George (CMG) in 1974 and a member ( Fellow ) of the Royal in 1981 Society (FRS) and the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (FRCVS), which also awarded him the Dalrymple Champneys Cup.

In 1984 he was winner of the King Baudouin Prize of the King Baudouin I - Foundation and 1994 winner of the South African Theiler Memorial Trust Award. Finally, in 1999, he was awarded the FAO World Food Prize, endowed with US $ 250,000 , for developing the vaccine against rinderpest to "improve the quality, quantity and accessibility of food in the world".

Even after his formal retirement, Plowright remained a sought-after advisor and visiting professor. In 2001 he was instrumental in the Royal Society's report on infectious diseases following the foot-and-mouth disease outbreak in the UK.

Web links

• THE TIMES: "Walter Plowright: developed vaccine against rinderpest" (February 25, 2010)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ D. Normile: rinderpest, deadly for cattle, joins smallpox as a vanquished disease . In: Science . Volume 330, number 6003, October 2010, p. 435, ISSN  1095-9203 , doi : 10.1126 / science.330.6003.435 , PMID 20966223 .
2. ↑ Program of the 79th General Assembly of the OIE (PDF; 190 kB)
3. ^ N. Gilbert: Cattle disease faces total wipeout . In: Nature . Volume 462, number 7274, December 2009, p. 709, ISSN  1476-4687 , doi : 10.1038 / 462709a , PMID 20010659 .