Some background history

In 1940, two French veterinarians, Gargadennec and Lalanne, were confronted with a devastating epizootic among goats and sheep in the Ivory Coast. The symptoms were similar to those of other known diseases. They first suspected bluetongue disease, then ulcerative stomatitis, and finally identified the clinical signs as being similar to those of rinderpest, a highly contagious viral disease that was at the time decimating cattle and buffalo herds. As the cattle in contact with these small ruminants did not show any sign of infection, they named the disease, "peste des petits ruminants".

In 1941, an identical deadly infection in Dwarf goat herds in Benin was described by Cathou under the name, "ovine and caprine species plague".

A few years later, in 1955, the disease was reported in Senegal.

Outbreaks in Nigeria and Ghana were reported between 1960 and 1970, sometimes under different names which reflected their clinical expression: pseudo-rinderpest, stomatitis pneumoenteritis complex and kata (a local Nigerian name, pidgin English for "catarrhal") in Nigeria.