Walter Plowright
Walter Plowright CMG, FRS, FRCVS (* July 10, 1923 in Holbeach, Lincolnshire, † 19 February 2010) was a British veterinary surgeon, pathologist, microbiologist and parasitologist, who developed a practical vaccine against rinderpest in the 1960s.
Biography
Study and career
After attending the grammar schools of Moulton and Spalding in Lincolnshire, he studied during the Second World War veterinary surgeon from the Royal Veterinary College ( RVC ), University of London. In 1944 he was called up for military service in the Veterinary Corps of the British Army ( Royal Army Veterinary Corps ) and was on duty in Kenya. His experience gathered there and experiences influenced his later career. After completing his military service, he returned in 1948 to the UK and started work as a lecturer at the RVC. However, he joined a short time later in the Veterinary Service of the then Ministry of the Colonies ( Colonial Office ) for which he returned in 1950 to Kenya. Initially he worked at the Animal Medical Research Laboratory in Kabete (Kenya ) and then in 1953 at the Federal Veterinary Laboratory in From (Nigeria ) worked.
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 carried out until 1971 we also saw the development of the vaccine against rinderpest. He was also since 1964 at the Institute for the Study of animal viruses ( Animal Virus Research Institute) in Pirbright, Surrey, works.
Discovery of the vaccine against rinderpest and effects
Walter Plowright developed in the 1960s, a vaccine against the rinderpest, which effectively eradicated a disease that had affected devastating world's cattle herds. After he had introduced Massenimpfprogramme in the developing world, he was hailed by beef farms whose herds were destroyed by the rinderpest. Moreover, the unusually vaccine also to an enormous strengthening of the global supply of meat and dairy products.
On 15 October 2010, the Director General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations ( FAO) announced that rinderpest has been eradicated thanks to the coordinated actions under the GREP. The official finding of extermination took place on 25 May 2011. Thus succeeded by the pox for the second time in history, to pay off an infectious disease.
Plowright was a veterinarian and research scientist who fought the virus infection with a simple, affordable and easy to administer vaccine. Even a single dose of his tissue culture Rinderpestimpfstoff ( Tissue Culture Rinderpest Vaccine ( TCRV ) ) resulted in a lasting immunity.
In addition, he was also honored because of the way he developed the test procedure and the use of the vaccine against rinderpest. These successful techniques were later repeated in the development of vaccines against Orf and lumpy skin disease.
Through the development of the vaccine Plowright was ultimately also contribute to the development of veterinary science in itself, a discipline whose reasoning was largely shaped by the fear of rinderpest, which led to the 19th century to a massive livestock deaths in Europe. His work had an important influence in the exploration of other viral diseases such as the ASF virus, Malignant catarrhal fever, orthopoxviruses and herpes simplex viruses.
In addition to the laboratorial development of the vaccine, which was one of the earliest examples of a developed by the tissue culture vaccine, undertook Plowright regular and extended excursions to thousands of cattle to test the effectiveness of TCRV to vaccinate. This he wore on wildebeest, which probably transmit the disease, but not easy to be treated animals were.
Although the rinderpest long time had been driven from most of Europe, the rinderpest in Africa established at the beginning of the 20th century with devastating proportions, and cut off after the attack a herd of up to 90 percent, while the rest of the stove was sickly and unproductive. In agricultures based on a livestock disease outbreak could trigger famine and economic depression like in the early 1980s led to economic losses as the rinderpest of around 2 billion U.S. dollars in Nigeria. The Food and Agriculture Organization ( FAO) predicted that the eradication of the virus would have caused less than 3 million dollars because of the cost effectiveness and affordability of TCRV.
Against this background, the low investment in the production of TRCV additional food production were calculated from 47 billion U.S. dollars in Africa, and of 289 billion U.S. dollars in India by the FAO. In addition, the FAO calculated an additional production of 70 million tonnes of beef and one billion tonnes of milk products in developing countries as a result of the eradication of rinderpest.
Later activities and awards
In 1971 he returned permanently to Britain after he had received a reputation as a professor of microbiology and parasitology at the RVC. Subsequently, he was from 1978 to 1981 director of the Department of Microbiology at the Institute for the Study of animal viruses in Compton (Berkshire ).
For his extensive work that was not only a scientific nature, but also his humanitarian services included, he has won several awards and was among others in 1974 Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG ) and 1981 member ( Fellow ) of the Royal Society (FRS ) and the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons ( FRCVS ), which also awarded him the Dalrymple - Champneys Cup.
In 1984, he became the first winner of the international development aid price of the King Baudouin I. Foundation and winner of the 1994 South African Theiler Memorial Trust Award. After 1999 he endowed with $ 250,000 World Food Prize was awarded to the FAO for the development of vaccine against rinderpest to "improve the quality, quantity and accessibility of foodstuffs in the world."
Even after his formal retirement Plowright remained a sought-after advisor and guest lecturer. In 2001, he was instrumental in the report of the Royal Society on infectious diseases following the outbreak of foot- and-mouth disease in Great Britain.