CBPP is a severe respiratory disease of cattle, caused by the bacterium Mycoplasma mycoides subsp. mycoides (Mmm). Molecular dating analyses showed that CBPP originated only around 300 years ago, most likely in Europe. During the 19th century, the disease was exported to other continents, including Africa, where it inflicts severe losses, posing a threat to food security and compromising peoples' livelihoods and wellbeing. Since CBPP lesions are highly evocative, abattoir surveillance and post-mortem investigations of lung lesions are of paramount importance for diagnosis and constitute the basis for disease surveillance in CBPP-free countries. Molecular diagnostic assays may be used for the rapid confirmation of CBPP suspicions, while serology is used for animal testing before trade. In endemic regions, clinical and abattoir investigations are rarely conducted, the isolation and molecular detection of the CBPP agent are even more infrequently performed and the disease is hardly ever reported. Both the complement fixation test (CFT) and competition ELISA (cELISA) are used for surveillance and prevalence studies, though due to their limited sensitivity they can only be interpreted at herd level and availability of commercial products is currently an important issue. Inexpensive tests, easy to operate at the pen-side may be useful for disease confirmation in remote regions, far from diagnostic laboratories. Research is needed to develop more effective tools and strategies for the control of the disease. Extensive comparative “omics” analyses conducted on a large sample of strains representing the temporal and spatial diversity of Mmm and other members of the “Mycoplasma mycoides” cluster are needed to determine representative pan and core genomes at different levels. These will facilitate the development of diagnostic and genotyping tools, as well as the identification of the molecular basis of virulence attenuation, and acquisition of AMR. Market studies are also nee