When the story of the Rinderpest vaccine is told, the work of Walter Plowright in Muguga is usually silently celebrated.

Thus, by possessing the most virulent strain of rinderpest, and which had been kept safely and alive in the Muguga laboratory, Kenya was sitting on two things: a biological warfare agent or the answer to rinderpest control.

Scientists had designated this strain as “Kabete O”. It is still one of the oldest laboratory strains of any virus in existence.