INTERNATIONAL efforts to eradicate a devastating disease affecting sheep and goats has taken on new urgency following the mass die-off of a rare Mongolian species of antelope.

Some 900 Saiga antelopes – almost 10% of the sub-species’ population – have been found dead in Mongolia’s western Khovd province. Samples taken from carcasses indicated the animals were positive for Peste des Petits Ruminants (PPR), a highly fatal viral disease with plague-like impact on domestic sheep and goat herds, where it often kills up to 90% of infected animals.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the World Organisation for Animal Health are now leading a multinational effort to eradicate PPR, which can have devastating food-security and economic impacts, particularly as 80% of the world’s estimated 2.1 billion small ruminants live in affected regions, where they are an important asset for a third of poor rural households.

While wildlife have long been considered potentially vulnerable, relatively few actual cases of PPR infection have been documented in free ranging wild goat-like species and never before in free-ranging antelope. The Mongolian casualties suggest that there was a 'spillover' event from domestic animals with which they shared common grazing areas, especially in winter when foraging ranges are fewer.

Mongolia reported its first-ever outbreak of PPR in September 2016, when sheep and goat deaths were linked to an extension of PPR cases occurring in China. The domestic small ruminant population in Mongolia is around 45 million, playing an essential economic and social role in a country where more than one third of the population derives its livelihoods directly from livestock. Mongolia exports live animals, meat, milk and is the world’s top producer of high-quality cashmere wool.