Until recently it was assumed the disease existed as long ago as 10000 B.C. when cattle were domesticated in the Indus valley in what is now Pakistan
In 1713 when it threanted the papal herds Pope clement XI asked his personal physician Dr. Giovanni Maria Lancisi to stop it
Despite its proximity to Eurasia Africa was spared until 1887 when the Italian Army struggling to conquer Abyssinia imported Indian cattle for food and draft power
An 1893 version made from the bile of convalescent animals was replaced by vaccines grown in goats and rabbits and finally in laboratory cell lines a heat-stable version was devolped in the 1980s
The modern eradication campaign began 1945 when the Food and Agriculture organization was founded
But other diseases have overlapping symptoms and a rapid diagnostic test that could be used next to a dying animal was not developed until the 1990s
The last known case was in a wild buffalo tested in mount muru national park in Kenya on 2001