Hi! Saw your post about Lucifer the bunny and it made my day. I will look into buying your book from sweden, the cause for it is wonderful. Anyway, I've heard rumors about Australia releasing a new rvhd virus to combat the wild rabbit population. We already have some problems now with the vaccination not giving full protection for the latest version (we call it "type 2") and as quickly as things travel now I'm a little bit worried. Do you know anything about that?
Basically the Australian Government is a douchebag when it comes to rabbits. We use myxomatosis and calicivirus (RHDV1) for biological control. These viruses will also affect pet rabbits. We’re allowed to have a calicivirus vaccine, Cylap, because it’s an inactivated vaccine. We’re not allowed a myxomatosis vaccine because it’s a modified live vaccine, so hundreds and thousands of pet rabbits die every year from myxo.
The Australian government is releasing RHDV1 K5. This is the Korean variant of the virus and government testing suggests that the current Cylap vaccine is effective against it.
However we also have RHDV2, which is the type 2 you mention. It was detected near Canberra in 2015 and the current vaccine is either partially effective, or completely ineffective.
All government agencies state the origin of RHDV2 in Australia is ‘unknown’.
Draw whatever conclusions you like from that.
