On Jun. 14, 2019, the Pirbright Institute announced that it had destroyed the last samples of rinderpest virus held in the World Reference Laboratory for rinderpest.

This completed a major milestone in the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) and Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) programme to eradicate the virus. Rinderpest virus caused the most lethal cattle disease ever known, but in 2011, after a huge global campaign, it officially became the second viral disease to be eradicated, after smallpox.