rabbit hemorrhagic disease virus

International Common Names

• English: rabbit haemorrhagic disease virus

English acronym

• RHDV

• Domain: Virus
•     Group: "Positive sense ssRNA viruses"
•         Group: "RNA viruses"
•             Family: Caliciviridae
•                 Genus: Lagovirus
•                     Species: rabbit hemorrhagic disease virus

Rabbit hemorrhagic disease virus (RHDV), a calicivirus (genus Lagovirus, family Caliciviriade), is a small non-enveloped single-stranded RNA virus, with a genome of ~7.4 kb and only one major capsid protein (VP60) (Ohlinger et al., 1990). RHDV causes a highly contagious and acute fatal hepatitis of wild and domestic European rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus) (reviewed by Abrantes et al., 2012). The genus Lagovirus also includes European brown hare syndrome virus (EBHSV), which causes disease in brown hares (Lepus europaeus). Despite their high genetic relationship (VP60 nucleotide similarity of 70%), RHDV and EBHSV are two distinct viral species (Lavazza et al., 1996; Wirblich et al., 1994).

There are three main RHDV groups:

i) “Classical RHDV”, including genogroups G1-G5, first reported in China in 1984 (Liu et al., 1984). This RHDV has been reported in Asia, Africa, Americas, Europe and Oceania and is endemic in most parts of the world where European rabbits live naturally or are domesticated.

ii) Subtype RHDVa/G6 identified in Europe in 1996 (Capucci et al., 1998; Schirrmeier et al., 1999) and since reported in Oceania, Asia and Americas.

iii) “New” RHDV (provisionally called RHDV2 or RHDVb), first reported in France in 2010 in wild and farmed vaccinated rabbits (Dalton et al., 2012; Le Gall-Reculé et al., 2011, 2013), that has since spread in Europe and was reported in Australia in 2015 (Hall et al., 2015). With a unique antigenic profile, it causes mortality in young rabbits (less than two months old) and vaccinated rabbits, typically not susceptible to G1-G6 strains (Dalton et al., 2012). RHDV2 appears to be replacing classical RHDV strains among some wild rabbit populations in Europe (Le Gall-Reculé et al., 2013; Lopes et al., 2015) and is capable of infecting lagomorphs from the Lepus genus (Puggioni et al., 2013; Camarda et al., 2014).

Weak pathogenic and non-pathogenic forms of the virus also exist, which are genetically different from the pathogenic RHDV (Capucci et al., 1996; Strive et al., 2009).

Rabbit haemorrhagic disease is on the list of diseases notifiable to the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE). For more information, see the website: www.oie.int