1890s African rinderpest epizootic

In the 1890s, an epizootic of the rinderpest virus struck Africa, considered to be "the most devastating epidemic to hit southern Africa in the late nineteenth century". It killed more than 5.2 million cattle south of the Zambezi, as well as domestic oxen, sheep, and goats, and wild populations of buffalo, giraffe, and wildebeest. The subsequent effects of the rinderpest outbreak thus led to massive famine, economic collapse, as well as disease outbreak in humans. Starvation spread across the region, it resulted in the death of an estimated third of the human population of Ethiopia and two-thirds of the Maasai people of Tanzania.

The famine and the massive decrease in cattle population, led to a change in the landscape from grass to thornbush. This formed the ideal habitat for tsetse fly and allowed them to expand from central and western African to the rest of the continent. Tsetse fly carry sleeping sickness which is transmitted from a tsetse bite. This disease affected animals and humans.

The virus is thought to have been introduced into Eritrea in 1887 by Indian cattle brought by the Italians for their campaign against Somalia. It spread throughout the Horn of Africa, and crossed the Zambezi in March 1896.

Sir Arnold Theiler was instrumental in developing a vaccine that curbed the epizootic.