RHDV2 2019 :: 'The Rabbit Outbreak'

Reading this in the middle of living through a COVID-19 pandemic isn't the best idea. But I did anyway. As if learning about a new G4 swine flu outbreak with pandemic potential isn't depressing enough. What's happening to the rabbits can happen to dogs too. Then, there's also the entire issue about such vaccines, and the ethical production of vaccines, and whether to use them on your pet. 

A scary new variant of lagoviruses in the form of RHDV2 is killing off rabbits in the US, apparently originating from Washington state in July 2019. There're vaccines that protect rabbits from diseases and original strains, but they don't protect against variants and newly mutated strains. As usual, because this is the United States, the paperwork to bring in the RHDV1 and RHDV2 vaccines, available only outside of the country. These vaccines are made from the livers of dead rabbits. Susan Orlean traces the events and details them in 'The Rabbit Outbreak', published in The New Yorker on 29 June, 2020.

Within five years of the emergence of the original form of rabbit hemorrhagic disease in China, a vaccine protecting against RHD had been developed. A number of manufacturers produce vaccines against this strain, including Filavie, in France; hipra, in Spain; and Merck, which is headquartered in New Jersey but made the vaccine for the European market. The vaccine was never offered in the United States. There were only a few RHDV1 cases here, including one in Pennsylvania, which was theorized to have come from an Oktoberfest party, where imported rabbit meat was served. If the meat was infected, the virus could have spread to vegetables prepared in the same kitchen; the vegetable scraps were then fed to rabbits.

As a personal choice, I don't eat rabbit. Neither do I feed rabbit to Choya. It's not for us. I have nothing against others eating rabbit. You want to eat it, go ahead. It doesn't offend me if it's served on the dining table. Just don't ask me to eat it. Feel free to say it's good, but don't make fun of it or launch into a tirade about meats. Eat your damn food like a normal omnivore. Singapore legally allows the import and consumption of rabbit meat. Restaurants and butchers are permitted to sell it to diners. All I know is, at the rate we're going, pandemics are going to be trending every other year, especially those viruses that have become hardy and can jump species to wreck havoc in humans. Containing outbreaks in a localized area seem to be getting more and more difficult. Who can regulate hygienic slaughter of animals to become meats in the supply chain? Unless the world turns vegetarian.

Rabbits are pets, as well as livestock...  aren't protected under the US federal laws. "The U.S.D.A. estimates that there are more than 6.7 million pet rabbits, but the total number of domestic rabbits would depend on whether you’re counting only pet rabbits or including rabbits raised for slaughter. Further complicating matters is the category of rabbits raised as, say, a 4-H project, which, once the project is done, might segue from pet to meat." The original RHD virus emerged in 1984 in Jiangsu, China. (Yes... I know... again.) RHD ravaged the rabbit population in all parts of the world, but it didn't exactly arrive in the US. The small number of RHD cases in the US were quickly contained. Now, RHDV2 has popped up and hit Washington, Arizona, New York, and moving onwards to other US states and British Columbia, killing off many pet rabbits and has made a cross-species leap to wild rabbits (which are a different species from domestic ones; wild rabbits seem to be immune to RHDV1). It's extremely contagious, hardy and now it's endemic. 

But nothing can help the wild rabbits. Some vaccines, such as the one for rabies, can be distributed to wild animals by putting them out as food, but the vaccine for the rabbit-hemorrhagic-disease virus has to be given by injection and repeated every year. The concern is not only that many wild rabbits could be lost; what happens to them reverberates in other animals, including foxes and bobcats and wolves and hawks, since rabbits are their chief protein source. “Once they run out of rabbits,” Zimmerman said, “cats and poodles will become their preferred food.” Or, if there aren’t enough wayward cats and poodles to go around, they’ll starve.

In the past three months, RHDV2 has shown up in seven Western states. Now that it has jumped to wild rabbits, most veterinarians I’ve spoken to believe that it’s here to stay, and that the U.S.D.A. should change its designation from a foreign animal disease to one that’s endemic. There have been a few lucky breaks. For instance, the big rabbit shows scheduled for the spring, which would have brought together tens of thousands of rabbits—a recipe for contagion—were cancelled because of covid-19. Nevertheless, RHDV2 is advancing unabated.