Morocco's Goat Plague

There was an article on The Australian's website about a "goat plague" in Morocco. I'm not sure if it's spread to other African countries or not. The article itself didn't really give a whole lot of information. Millions of goats and sheep are going to be vaccinated for the disease, so I'm not too sure if it's going to become a huge issue, economic or otherwise. I think the vaccinations their getting may even have been donated.

But that's not really my point. What I thought was interesting about that article was that it pointed out this goat plague had never been recorded in North Africa. They said that it came from illegal introduction of live animals that had been smuggled in from elsewhere.
Naturally, you'd think the countries next to it were the ones who smuggled the animals. But, the issue is that these animals that were smuggled would have been immune to the goat plague, then introduced it to the local goats who hadn't built up an immunity. It's the same reason you can't leave or enter our country with live outdoor plants. So I'm lead to believe that these animals came form fairly far away... like maybe Europe?

It got me thinking about the "dumping" of agricultural overflow that developed nations are placing on the underdeveloped ones. I would say the United States, but I'm not so sure we have enough goats to have an oversupply of them. What if this really is a hard reality of dumping? What if these animals that were smuggled into Morocco came form European farmers trying to get rid of their subsidized oversupply?

I think the dumping might be referring more towards fruits, grains, and vegetables of the sort, but I'm not so sure that these infected animals just came from another African country.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24339334-12335,00.html

Scientific American hosted a follow-up article on the incident. Apparently the plague has actually managed to cross the Sahara desert into Northern Africa. They say there won't be any economic issues that develop from the plague and that the issue is social because these animals have such a huge impact on day-to-day life. They said there's no threat to humans either.

I don't know, but the article sounded a little... well almost degrading. It was like: "80% of an entire population of livestock that an entire continent depends on has been wiped out by an aggressive plague... but there's no issue. At least it wasn't cattle."

This has to be a larger issue than what the article is admitting. I'm not sure about the goat industry in Africa, or what it supplies or anything, but I'm sure farmers rely on them.
Another thing people should be asking how it crossed the Sahara. Maybe it really is this agricultural dumping, maybe it didn't spread over the sahara, but was brought above it. Or, maybe it was just an insect migrating that carried it.
What's confusing me is how nonchallant the world seems to be about this. It just doesn't really make any sense to me. If locusts took out all the corn farms in the United States, we'd be bombing someone the next day. I think this is being brushed off a little too easily.