2020 has been quite the year. But, if you were getting ready for a break, I have bad news. There’s now a plague spreading through rabbits. Bunny Ebola.
How Did Bunny Ebola Start?
Lorelei D’Avolio was a Manhatten vet. You can surely imagine that she’s seen a lot. So, when she describes something as “terrifying,” it can’t be good. And it wasn’t. February 15th, 2020, pet rabbits at the Center for Avian and Exotic Medicine started to die. “Someone saw them spasming and yelled. We tried to do CPR,” she says, “but these rabbits were dead within minutes. They would convulse, scream horribly, and die.” The clinic stopped accepting rabbits, but it was too late. Out of 16 bunnies who had come into contact with the virus, 14 died.
If you’re tempted to compare it to the novel coronavirus, don’t. It’s “way more infectious than COVID. It’s way more persistent,” explains D’Avolio. Additionally, “it’s resistant to extreme temperatures, it can be transmitted on bugs, on carcasses. It can spread on water, it can be spread on shoes.” (1)
What Is Bunny Ebola?
We refer to it as ‘bunny ebola,’” explains Texas vet, Dr. Amanda Jones. Although she admits, it’s “not related in any way, shape, or form” to the human ebolavirus, there are similar symptoms. What it actually is, is rabbit hemorrhagic disease, also known as RHDV2. It has no impact on humans, thankfully–one virus is enough. However, it has a large impact, in terms of death rate in rabbits: 90%. The death rate was originally reported as lower, and more variable: 5%-70%. But this new round is much more fatal–the 90% figure comes from a May 2020 California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) memo. Both wild and domestic rabbits can be infected. It creates lesions on the organs, causing internal bleeding. It gives them hepatitis. They may not eat. Then they hemorrhage and die. (1, 2, 3)
Where Is Bunny Ebola?
As of June 28th, 2020, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) reported 146 sites of RHDV2 in the southwestern US. New Mexico vet, Ralph Zimmerman says that “we still have no idea where it originated,” since “it’s snowballed and moved like mad.” (1, 2)
Problems With The Spread
Unfortunately, due to the high contagion factor, RHDV2 is near impossible to stop. Bunny ebola can last up to “105 days on environmental surfaces at room temperature,” says the CDFA. It “has been found in decaying tissue of infected carcasses for up to 90 days, and may persist in chilled or frozen rabbit meat.” Not only that, but a bunny who survives RHDV2 can carry the pathogens for 2 months. This has led to some serious measures. New Mexico has enforced a policy where if one rabbit in a household gets it, any other rabbits in the household need to be put down. There have been 492 rabbit deaths from RHDV2–but over 1,100 bunnies killed. “It is up to you as the owner to protect your rabbits by practicing good biosecurity. . . taking simple steps every day to keep germs away from your animals, ” according to the USDA (1, 2, 3)
