Fred R. Rurangirwa
Dr. Rurangirwa is an international expert in infectious diseases of ruminant livestock and is head of molecular diagnostics at the Washington Animal Diseases Diagnostic Laboratory. As a consultant to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Dr. Rurangirwa assisted in the development of emergency control procedures for contagious bovine pleuropneumonia outbreaks in eastern and central Africa and established a facility capable of culturing, isolating, and typing the causative bacteria in Tanzania. Dr. Rurangirwa coordinated the University’s Animal Health Research Project, a component of The Small Ruminant Collaborative Research Support Program (SR-CRSP)- a cooperative activity of university and research institutions of Brazil, Peru, Bolivia, Indonesia, Kenya, Morocco and United States. Working with the Government of Kenya's Ministry of Research, Science and Technology, Dr. Rurangirwa oversaw the project and supervised the theses research for all the students that it sponsored. Meanwhile, he worked on development of a vaccine against contagious caprine pleuropneumonia, a devastating disease of goats in Africa. The vaccine is presently produced in Kenya and Ethiopia and sold all over Africa and beyond.