(1) It was not until rinderpest , or cattle plague, a highly fatal and contagious disease, wiped out seven per cent of the national herd between 1865 to 1867, that views on controlling animal disease changed, says Dr Woods.

(2) Here droughts, floods and locusts destroy crops and rinderpest kills cattle.

(3) Two devastating cattle diseases, rinderpest in 1896-7 and East Coast fever, which moved slowly through the country from 1904 to 1913, each killed as much as 80 per cent of the herds in some districts.

(4) Camels obviously evolved in an extremely harsh environment and are immune to diseases such as rinderpest and foot-and-mouth that afflict other mammals.

(5) However, in 1880-81, when the British unintentionally introduced rinderpest (a cattle disease), the Maasai lost 80 percent of their stock.