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Local Rabbits' New Risk

Denise Flaim | Animal House

January 29, 2002

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THE WORLD is a scary place, filled with plenty of things to worry about.

If you have a bunny in your household, add this ominous-sounding phrase to your list: rabbit hemorrhagic disease.

Also referred to as viral hemorrhagic disease (VHD) or the more benign-sounding rabbit calicivirus disease (RCD), RHD is a highly contagious virus that damages the liver, intestines and lymphatic system and causes severe blood clots, which explains its nickname: "Rabbit ebola."

You've probably not heard much about RHD, but you will be hearing more, especially after a local outbreak has put breeders, rescuers and owners on high alert.

Denise Flaim Bio | E-mail | Recent columns

The good news, if there is any, about RHD is that is it not transmissible to other species, including humans, and is not related to the ebola virus.

Globally speaking, RHD is not a new phenomenon: In 1984, the virus cropped up in China, then spread to Korea, Italy, France, Germany, Spain and other European countries. Four years later, a shipment of frozen rabbit carcasses from China brought the disease to Mexico.

In 1995, the virus "mysteriously" escaped from an Australian laboratory that was studying it as a way to curb the continent's spiraling population of nonindigenous European rabbits; jealous New Zealand farmers soon managed to hijack it to their country as well.

Up until recently, RHD was not an issue in the United States, largely because our indigenous wild rabbit population of cottontails and jackrabbits is immune to the disease. Our domesticated rabbits, however, are descendents of the European rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus), and they are very much at risk.

In April 2000, the first documented case of RHD in this country surfaced in an Iowa rabbitry. Last year, another seemingly isolated outbreak of RHD cropped up in Utah.

And last month, the disease struck right in our backyard: Linda Corcoran, a spokeswoman for the Queens Zoo, confirms that three rabbits at the facility died from RHD. The U.S. Department of Agriculture was called in, the zoo's remaining five rabbits were euthanized and the facility was disinfected under the federal agency's guidelines.

Corcoran says the affected rabbits were "donations" - abandoned bunnies often are left at the zoo's gate by owners who have tired of them.

Rabbit breeders are especially concerned about the disease, which is transmitted through "fomites" - inanimate objects that act as carriers.

"It's a toughy - it's right up there with foot and mouth disease" in terms of how long it stays viable, says Pamela Alley, a rabbit breeder from Oroville, Calif., and director of the Rabbit Industry Council. "The consensus seems to be it's very 'sticky,' tends to cling to things and will survive freezing."

"If it gets into a rabbitry, it's going to spread like wildfire," says Bruce L. Akey, director of Virginia's Department of Agriculture and Consumer Service's veterinary diagnostic laboratory system, who has been following the RHD outbreaks closely. "One thing that tips you off is that it's not a few rabbits that are sick, but that a lot are dying rapidly."

But an infected rabbit has a very bleak prognosis, to put it mildly: According to the USDA, the death rate ranges from 50 to 100 percent. There is no treatment, and death occurs within one to three days after infection.

The biggest precaution rabbit owners can take, says Akey, "is to know where your rabbits are coming from." Quarantining a new animal is "essential," minimally from two to four weeks. "If I had reason to suspect it was in my area," adds Alley the breeder, "I'd be disinfecting my car tires and changing shoes and bleaching the ones I had on."

Although other countries have used vaccines to help control RHD, they are not available here.

For more information on RHD, visit www.vhdinfo.com.

Note: In last week's Q&A column, an editor deleted a brand name from one of my sentences, thus encouraging readers to stuff any old dog toy with kibble and peanut butter, freeze it and then hand it over for Fido's chewing pleasure. To clarify: The only toy I recommend you doing this with is a rubber Kong, which is made specifically for stuffing and is relatively indestructible.