Scientist at New Zealand Conference on RHD says RHD infects hares.
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At a conference held in New Zealand in March 1998 titled -

Rabbit Control; RCD - dilemmas and implications conference. Wellington, New Zealand 30-31 March 1998, a paper was presented that indicated that hares may be infected by RHDV at very high doses. (And with the Australians spreading the disease, who knows what may happen next!)

The paper was titled "Phylogeny and variability of rabbit haemorrhagic disease virus, and the present situation of rabbit haemorrhagic disease in Europe" by N.Nowotny, C. Ros Bascunana, A. Ballagi-Pordany, S.Belak, D Gavier-Widen & M. Uhlen

I quote directly from this paper-

"A major question asked is whether or not RHDV is able to cross species barriers and infect other species. Scientists cannot predict in which direction micro-organisms mutate; they are only able to react after a micro-organism has evolved. Since its sudden emergence in 1984, RHDV has infected naturally only wild and domestic rabbits of the species Oryctolagus cuniculus, with one exception: under certain circumstances (i.e.transmission at very high doses) we and others have observed that hares, which are closely related to rabbits, may be susceptible to RHDV (Steinbeck & Nowotny 1993; Nowotny et al 1997; Ohlinger pers. comm.)."

Hares test positive to RHD in Poland
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In August 1995, in Poland (Frolick 1995), three test sera out of 100 were positive to RHDV in hares and two of these had antibodies to the European Brown Hare Virus. These data clearly report that hares became exposed and presumably infected with RHD. Others in China also report that European Brown Hares became exposed and presumably infected with RHDV (Xu 1991). Reports indicate that Rabbit hemorrhagic disease killed a wild hare in China and that animals' tissue produced rabbit hemorrhagic disease in exposed rabbits and this was reported in the literature cited. More recently RHDV in hares has been confirmed in Austria (Nowotny pers. comm. 1998) Naturally and experimentally infected dogs and foxes developed RHDV antibody and dogs shed the virus in their faeces (Simon et al 1994).

Claims of there being "no evidence" of RHD infecting hares should be disregarded. The cultivatable calicivirus model suggests that this should occur, and there is considerable experimental evidence that RHD can and does infect multiple species.


Native Animals test positive to RHD in Australia
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In tests undertaken in Australia where many species of animals were injected with RHDV to indicate whether they were susceptible to the disease, a cut off level of 30% was used. Any readings above this level were regarded as positive reactions to RCD. In the 1996 BRS Report on RHDV(RCD) it was noted that several different species tested positive to RHDV including mice, bush rats, brown falcons, ferrets, pigeons, Silver gulls, Northern brown bandicoots, one wombat, all four echidnas, and one but probably all seven short-tailed bats developed an antibody response following rabbit hemorrhagic disease injection.

For further scientific information on the non-species specificity of RHDV contact Dr Alvin Smith at Oregon State University Laboratory of Calicivirus Studies
Email alvin.smith@orst.edu


Pigs susceptible to RHD according to Taiwan research.
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1: Can J Vet Res 2000 Apr;64(2):134-7

Susceptibility of piglets to rabbit hemorrhagic disease virus following experimental infection.

Shien JH, Lee LH.

Department of Veterinary Medicine, National Chung Hsing University, Taichung, Taiwan.

The possibility exists that rabbit hemorrhagic disease virus (RHDV) can be transmitted to swine, through lapinized hog cholera virus (HCV) vaccine. To investigate the infectivity of RHDV in swine, 16 four- to six-week-old piglets were inoculated subcutaneously with RHDV, and samples of liver, lung, spleen, kidney, bile, adrenal gland, tonsil, mesenteric lymph node, thymus, urine, buffy coat, and feces were collected from each of 2 animals on Days 0, 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 14, and 28 post infection. Using reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction, viral RNA was detected in most tissues by Day 3 and was absent after Day 5, except in lung and liver tissues, in which viral RNA was detected up to Day 14. Viral RNA was not detected in kidney, urine, feces or bile. Antibody responses, as detected by hemagglutination inhibition, were of low titer and short duration, and were similar in animals inoculated with viable RHD and in those given formalin-inactivated RHDV (n = 2). Neither viral RNA nor antibody were detected in the negative control or in the uninfected, in-contact animals.

PMID: 10805254 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

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