UW Veterinary Care offers rabbit vaccine against highly contagious, fatal disease

A rabbit listens amongst nibbles in the Grady Kettle Hole Forest at the UW–Madison Arboretum. Photo: Bryce Richter

Researchers and clinicians are sounding the alarm as the deadly rabbit hemorrhagic condition, RHDV2, spreads across the U.S. In reaction, the UW Veterinary Treatment Particular Species Health Assistance at the University of Wisconsin School of Veterinary Medicine has started featuring an unexpected emergency-approved vaccine towards the sickness for rabbits.

The clinic is a single of about a dozen animal hospitals in the state to offer you the vaccine and component of a developing exertion nationally to stimulate rabbit proprietors to seek vaccination. UW Veterinary Treatment presents the RHDV2 vaccine on Fridays every 3 weeks by the Special Species Well being Service. Any rabbit individuals in Wisconsin are welcome proprietors do not have to have to be earlier founded customers with UW Veterinary Treatment to make an appointment.

RHDV2 is a very contagious overseas animal disorder that possible originated in Europe. It impacts both equally domestic and wild rabbits but is not spreadable to other species or individuals.

The to start with strain of rabbit hemorrhagic condition was found all over 2010. Since then, it has traveled to North America and mutated into the type of the virus that is now wreaking havoc on U.S. wild rabbit populations, generally in the West. The U.S. Office of Agriculture expedited the vaccine distribution procedure, granting unexpected emergency authorization in September 2021 to deal with the difficulty and restrict the disease’s distribute to commercially elevated and domestic rabbits.

Between the most preferred animals in The usa, rabbits rank 3rd guiding puppies and cats, with an estimated 3 million rabbits saved as animals in U.S. homes.

Kurt Sladky, a veterinarian and scientific professor of zoological medication and unique species well being at the UW Faculty of Veterinary Drugs, thinks the virus is probably in Wisconsin regardless of an absence of detected circumstances.

“Some wild rabbits, if located dead and suspected of sickness, are submitted to laboratories outfitted to make the analysis, this kind of as the Countrywide Wildlife Wellbeing Middle here in Madison,” Sladky suggests. “But there is no uncomplicated way to find and observe how quite a few have died in the wild.”

Sladky describes the condition as devastating. The moment rabbits have contracted the virus, they generally bleed to demise. With the now circulating strains of the virus, veterinarians and public health officers be expecting the mortality rate to be particularly high — killing among 70 to 100 {aa306df364483ed8c06b6842f2b7c3ab56b70d0f5156cbd2df60de6b4288a84f} of contaminated rabbits.

The virus spreads easily by call with overall body secretions these types of as saliva, urine and blood. It can are living up to a month on surfaces like clothes or blades of grass, growing its transmissibility.

“Your rabbit could come to be contaminated by way of urine, feces, blood … even a fly could land on a carcass with the virus and transmit it to a further rabbit if the fly’s feet make direct make contact with with the nose of a different rabbit,” Sladky suggests. “It’s so quickly transmissible rabbit to rabbit.”

Pet rabbits are turning out to be vulnerable, Sladky warns, because of the virus’s various outbreaks and staying power. The disease’s world wide unfold is considered to have happened by routes like rabbit displays and meat output chains. For this rationale, UW Veterinary Care’s Exclusive Species clinicians requested accessibility to the vaccine as promptly as attainable for their sufferers. In 2021, the hospital saw almost 800 rabbit affected individual visits.

The USDA and Wisconsin Division of Agriculture, Trade and Buyer Protectoin collaborated to authorize a two-dose collection of pictures made by Medgene Labs, a South Dakota business. The vaccine is equivalent to a single correctly made in Europe. Experiments present the U.S.-made vaccine is remarkably effective. It consists of an original dose, a booster 3 to four weeks later on and a annually booster.

In addition to the vaccine, Sladky recommends other steps to protect pet rabbits. Although the weather is warming and outside work out may well be best, pet rabbits ought to chorus from going outside — or at least right up until they are totally guarded by the RHDV2 vaccine. In addition, rabbit entrepreneurs must acquire hay, a core ingredient of a rabbit’s diet program, from recognized reliable sources. Ultimately, blocking entry to other rabbits, particularly wild rabbits, stays vital.

“We’re trying to teach clients that an essential infectious illness of rabbits is spreading from condition to state,” Sladky states. “You need to think about the strategies your pet rabbit could come to be uncovered and the probable penalties.”

For much more details on the rabbit vaccine clinics, connect with UW Veterinary Care at 608-263-7600.