One control method is to test for the disease and remove infected cattle from the herd.
Canada has had such a system in place since 2001 and has used it to track the origin of infected cattle.
So withholding infected cattle is much easier said than done.
Contact with infected cattle was believed to be the source of the outbreak; however, a specific cause was never identified.
The disease causes severe anemia and wasting in infected adult cattle.
At first Government officials assured the public that people could not get the disease from eating infected cattle.
It was probably brought to Ethiopia by infected cattle imported for the Italian army.
On May 3, the 17th infected cattle were confirmed.
On May 6, 35 infected cattle were confirmed adding 10,000 more cattle due to be killed.
Nervous tissue from infected cattle can spread the disease from one cow to another.