An outbreak of Peste des petits ruminants (PPR) among sheep and goats was reported in the central and southern regions of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia between April-August 2004. Typical clinical manifestations of acute PPR including, fever, anorexia, diarrhea, mucopurulent nasal and ocular discharges, dyspnea and necro-ulcerative stomatitis were observed with a relatively high case fatality rate among lambs and kids aged 4-9 months. On postmortem examinations, pneumonia, enteritis, hemorrhages and necrosis in the abomasal mucosa, and pleurisy were the most common gross lesions. Both PPRV-antigen and antibody assays were used to confirm diagnosis of the disease. Indirect fluorescent antibody (IFA) technique and immuno-capture ELISA (IC-ELISA) were used for demonstration of PPR viral antigen in the mouth scraping, spleen and lung tissue specimens. The laboratory study indicated that both IFA and IC-ELISA were reliable, rapid and sensitive methods for detection and identification of PPRV antigen. Competitive ELISA (C-ELISA) was used for detection of PPRV-antibodies in ovine and caprine sera. Serodiagnosis revealed that 40.7-100% of the collected sheep and goats sera were positive. In conclusions, the reported PPR outbreak is mostly attributed to the presence of enzootic virulent strains of PPR virus, which could have circulate between the infected and susceptible animals in sheep and goats flocks with no actual national vaccination regime against the disease. The present study recommended that, legalization of the restriction of the animal movement should be applied for sheep and goats populations during the risk period of PPR in different localities of the country. An obligatory vaccination program against PPR virus infection should be applied for all sheep and goats flocks allover the country. Lambs and kids should be vaccinated at 3^rd month of age, when the maternal antibodies decline.