UNAVAILABILITY OF MYXOMYTOSIS VACCINE IN US

[FlemishMom]

 I originally posted the following in the Disabled Rabbits forum on FB following an intensive discussion of the growing threat of myxomytosis in the US.  You can get a great background on myxo my tosis from Wikipedia– http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myxomatosis

EFFORTS FOR A US MYXOMYTOSIS VACCINE: LET’s DO SOMETHING LIFESAVING FOR OUR BUNS. FYI/Update: I looked up Intervet, the manufacturer and apparently the US Intervet corporation is some sort of subsidiary of Merck Animal Health, whose website doesn’t even have a separate page for Rabbit as it does for Dogs, Cats, Cattle, Poultry, etc. I did contact them requesting information on any initiatives to bring the vaccine to the US, expressing my concern about the outbreaks in California and the fact that in Europe the disease had passed from rabbits to cause the extinction of various wild species. I am also investigating other methods of applying pressure, but it’s important to have as accurate and update information as possible. My landlord works at FDA and I have asked him how I find out whether the vaccine is in clinical trials yet. . . . It would be really great if we could get as many people as possible to use the Contact Us function on the Merck Animal Health site and express their desire for the US availability of the vaccine and their concerns if the vaccine does not become available. They need to understand there would be a market for it.

 

KEEP THE ENERGY, SUSTAIN THE INITIATIVE, MAKE POSITIVE CHANGE.  Please pass this on to other rabbit people.  If you have contacts in HRS (House Rabbit Society) or ARBA or any other rabbit organization in the US, please voice your concern to them too.  I am holding off on formally presenting the issue to people I know in ARBA until I see if I can get any further information from Merck on any initiatives they may already have underway in making this available.  The name of the vaccine marketed by Intervet in the UK, where I believe it may be required, is Novibac Myxo and it also vaccinates against VHD.  Importantly, the vaccine does not entirely prevent the disease but does greatly diminish its mortality rate and suffering by an infected rabbit.

Thanks for your help.

[Sarita]

I rarely hear about this in the US – what I hear it seems to happen usually in rabbit breeding facilities.

Apparently it is much more prevalent in the UK than here.

[FlemishMom]

The point is it has only just made it over here and people are not educated and do not know that it will become a problem here as it did elsewhere: it not only wipes out rabbits rapidly and in a very cruel fashion, it spreads from rabbits to other species via the mouth and wipes them out. That’s why other countries REQUIRE the vaccination because this virus is a rabbiticide and was initially introduced as such.

I AM BEGGING YOU – Please read the article, below, in Wikipedia– the problem is that we are uneducated and don’t KNOW what risk all our rabbits stand in now that it is in the US. We need to act before we experience what other countries have. Remember, it was RELEASED in Australia precisely to WIPE out the wild rabbit population because the rabbits were considered an agricultural pest, like an insect, when their predators disappeared as Australia developed. And it worked very efficiently. Too efficiently.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myxomatosis

[NewBunnyOwner123]

This is quite frustrating. They unleash this disease to purposely wipe out a particular species without realizing it affects people and their domesticated pets. They did not think that through. Instead, they should have released a natural, native predator. Creating a disease and releasing it out to the world is quite irresponsible.

Anyhoo, if it spreads enough and causes a problem then I am sure the US will have no problem taking the vaccine. but until then, they don’t want to scare people unless necessary.

[Sarita]

I am very familiar with this – it’s a terrible thing, I agree.

[FlemishMom]

The thing is it spreads very rapidly and how often does rabbit news make the news!!!! It’s all by word of mouth, slow monthly print magazines or social media. We are not necessarily a community that educates ourselves quickly. I mean, NewBunnyOwner123, I appreciate all your concerned comments but who is it in the US who you think is going to make this determination and do the educating for you and the rest of the rabbit owners????? Who are you leaving that responsibility to? I am a rabbit owner and a rational person and I take some responsibility on myself. I don’t think it’s unnecessarily scaring people asking them to know what happened throughout Europe and suggest that since we have no safeguards in place the same thing could happen here.

[FlemishMom]

NewBunnyOwner123 and others: I do know I get excited on the rare occasions I fire up on something. Please don’t take offense that this issue strikes me as an important one and I try to persuade you as well. . . .

[bullrider76543]

I have heard of this too, and I think the problem is that people in America still look at bunnies as farm animals or lovely forest creatures like in Disney movies. the lack of education on rabbits in this country is a shame!! It is going to take a bunch of us putting petitions in to even get the problem addressed. It would help if we had Rabbit savey vets behind us saying how important it is!

[FlemishMom]

Bullrider76543 — you are absolutely right! . . And it would be awesome if the pet insurers actually got behind it because most of them belong to larger health insurance companies and that’s one of the highest grossing lobbies near Capitol Hill! I guess I can dream on about the latter . . . .

[Sarita]

I’ve heard of a few cases in pet rabbits – the majority are at rabbit breeding farms where it spreads rapidly.

It’s really more of an education tool for pet rabbit owners to encourage them not to take their rabbits outside where they have a chance of catching it from mosquitoes which are vectors for so many awful diseases.

[Sarita]

The biggest animal rights lobbying group in the US is HSUS.

I cannot see pet insurers getting behind this though….

[FlemishMom]

Sadly, Sarita, I know you you’re right about the insurance industry. That’s why I “dream on”. I didn’t realize HSUS existed or that it was the biggest animal rights lobby. I like your point about it being an educational tool.

[mocha200]

I read about the rabbits in Australia in my Science this year. Someone brought rabbits to Australia because he wanted to hunt them ( GRRR) But there weren’t any rabbits In Australia back then. So he imported 24 rabbits from England which soon became over 10,000 quickly! But he didn’t think it through and realize that it can upset the whole ecosystem. In England there were a ton of predators to the rabbit which kept them under control, but since Australia wasn’t meant to have rabbits, their were no predators there! Scientist then created a virus that was only deadly to the English rabbit and infected many rabbits and released them back into the wild. For awhile they thought it didn’t work until about 13 years later the found a huge number of rabbits dead in a certain area of Australia. It turned out that mosquitoes which had bitten the diseased rabbits were slowly infecting non diseased rabbits.

With all of that trouble they went to they still ended up not killing all the rabbits and just created a huge mess.

[FlemishMom]

Thank you, mocha200. It’s wonderful to hear that you learned about this in your schooling!!!!!

[mocha200]

FlemishMom: Yes, I am homeschooled though so most likely they don’t teach about this in public schools.

[FlemishMom]

Well, congrats, machoa200, to your folks and the people who helped them put your curriculum together. We need to understand the impacts we have in bioengineering, the moral responsibilities that lie with it and the wisdom of thinking things out in advance. . . . Maybe someday it will make itw way into more mainstream curriculum . . . . who knows? Life never ceases to amaze me.

[LBJ10]

This has happened many times in history. Someone thinks it would be a great idea to release some animals somewhere to introduce them (for whatever reason they had in mind), only to find out that this particular animal was wreaking havoc on the local ecosystem. Like Mocha said, they wanted the rabbits in Australia for hunting. But the rabbits have few predators there and it doesn’t get really cold there (so the rabbits are able to breed year round in some places). The idea of introducing this disease sounded like an excellent solution. Introducing a natural predator wasn’t a good idea because they might eat native animals (instead of the intended target). The disease, on the other hand, only affects rabbits. It is extremely unfortunate that this was the best solution they could come up with. Of course, this was the 1950’s, so they didn’t have the technology we have now. When I was in undergrad, we talked about a method where “birth control” could be effectively delivered through a deactivated virus. Anyway, I wouldn’t be angry with the people who introduced the virus. I would be angry with the idiots who introduced the rabbits in the first place.

As for here in the US, it seems it is a little more difficult for the virus to spread. Wild cottontails can be carriers of the virus, but it doesn’t affect them like it does domestic rabbits. I imagine this is because they are a different genus. This makes me curious now because you would think the disease would still spread from cottontails to domestic rabbits via mosquitoes. The mosquito would have to bite the cottontail though and then the domestic rabbit. I wonder how long the virus is viable on the mouthparts of the mosquito. Perhaps the mosquito has to bite the cottontail and then immediately bite the domestic rabbit?

[LBJ10]

Hmm, interesting. It seems that the virus can be spread by mosquitoes, but transmission is mechanical. Cells from the host containing the virus can ride on the mosquito’s mouthparts. They have not found the virus in mosquito saliva, so the virus doesn’t replicate inside the mosquito. There doesn’t seem to be much agreement on how long the virus can survive like that. Some say a couple days, others say weeks. I find that unusual since most viruses die within minutes of being outside the host’s body. Interestingly, the mosquito has to feed on the lesion on the rabbit in order to pick up the virus. Biting in a non-infected area doesn’t do it. Although cottontail to domestic transmission via mosquito is possible, it is less likely to occur since cottontails don’t shed the virus in the same manner domestic rabbits do. This is because the symptoms are much more pronounced in domestic rabbits compared to cottontails. So more likely is domestic rabbit to domestic rabbit transmission via mosquitoes. Perhaps this explains why the disease spreads more easily in places where the wild rabbits are the same species as domestic rabbits. Hoping my logic makes sense there. Anyway, this is just me thinking “out loud”. I find this interesting.

[mocha200]

My Parents have chosen what I use for my curriculum.

The developed the virus in 1937 but it didn’t take affect until 1950. I can’t remember what year they introduced the rabbits as I’m not at home. I also know the name of the man who imported the rabbits. Maybe there is more information about him on the Internet…. I would be very interested in researching more about this.

[LBJ10]

Mocha – Wikipedia says it was first observed in a laboratory in Uruguay in 1896. The virus was first field-tested in Australia in 1938. Then it was introduced “full-scale” in 1950. Rabbits were first introduced to Australia in 1788, but the current rabbit population appears to have descended from the 24 that Thomas Austin released for hunting purposes in 1859.

[FlemishMom]

LBJ10–good points; thank you; and mocha200, your parents sound like amazing teachers.

As to spreading the disease, rabbits can also spread it to other species, as the wikipedia article pointed out, “via the mouth.”  I suspect this means a saliva to blood transfer — as long as it’s in the animal’s system it will be in its saliva so when it bites it then flows from the first animal’s system into the blood of the other species.  That is how in Europe (Wikipedia) the virus spread to other rare European wild species and caused their extinction.

My understanding is that between rabbits the virus can be transferred by mere contact which is why if you have one rabbit with it you need to quarantine and clean carefully after handling and before handling any other rabbits you may have.

One thing I am curious about and I don’t mean this as alarmist or a real possibility, but when the CDC (Center for Disease Control in Atlanta) studies some animal viruses, what it studies is the virus’s ability to mutate into something that could infect humans — swine flu and bird flu were identified as a potential threat to humans, I believe though I may be wrong, based on studies that indicated there was a Possibility of Mutation such that they could develop into a virus attacking humans though perhaps bird flu passed to humans before it was so rigorously studied.  I don’t think swine flu has ever passed to humans but the preparation for a possible epidemic of it throughout the healthcare community is based on its perceived likelihood of mutating in that direction.  LBJ10, you seem very knowledgeable.  Do you happen to know the facts here to set me straight?

[LBJ10]

Hmm, that is a good question. I honestly don’t know. The possibility exists, I’m sure. The chances of that happening are probably not good though. Myxomatosis is a poxvirus, like chicken pox. These viruses are very complex and their mutation rates are relatively slow. It could be that the virus is not different enough from the chicken pox. With the chicken pox, people would get it once and then they wouldn’t get it again. That is because they have developed antibodies that prevent reinfection. Small pox is also in that group and it turns out the vaccine for that was created using the vaccinia virus. It is not the same virus as small pox, but it is similar enough that the antibodies people’s bodies produced to combat the vaccinia virus worked against the small pox virus as well. So I wonder if that has something to do with myxomatosis’ inability to infect humans. Not sure about that though.

Influenza, on the other hand, mutates so rapidly and so differently that antibodies people develop are not effective against new strains of the virus. Influenza isn’t as complicated of a poxvirus either, so that might make it easier to jump the species gap.

And yes, the virus can be transmitted rabbit to rabbit. It seems though that without a vector (mosquito), the virus cannot spread very far. So it would remain more isolated, within a population.

[MoveDiagonally]

I live in Oregon and I know that Myxomytosis was a big concern in 2010 and it can be transmitted via mosquito bites.

Actually, I found an old post by Monkeybun that includes the warning about this issue, the vet quoted is my vet:
https://binkybunny.com/FORUM/tabid/54/aft/110479/Default.aspx

I would LOVE for there to be a vaccine available so I could feel comfortable about allowing my rabbits to have outside play time. As it stands now they don’t get any. It’s not worth the risk for me.

[MoveDiagonally]

I did a little searching around the net and came up with this info from the AHI (Animal Health Institute).
http://www.ahi.org/about-animal-medicines/regulation/usda/

“Vaccines are regulated by the Center for Veterinary Biologics (CVB) in the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), a branch of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).”

I’m not sure if the FDA would have info about whether or not the vaccine is being tested since APHIS would be who regulates them. I’m going to shoot them an email and ask! I will let you know if I get a response.

Edit: I also contacted Merck Animal Health to request information and express a desire for the vaccination to be available in the US.

I agree that scaring people is not beneficial, but if I can send some emails and let a company know that I would appreciate their product in the US I say “why not?”. I take my pets to preventative vet visits at least once a year. How is a vaccine for something that, especially in my area, has been an increasing risk any different? A preventative vaccine would be better than waiting until it becomes a rampant problem. 

[FlemishMom]

MoveDiagonally– Excellent info about APHIS.  My landlord works at FDA and I sent him an email asking how I could find out but he is out till late Sunday so maybe he knows someone who can help clear this up too.  Thanks for the email to Merck!

[FlemishMom]

LBJ10- Thank you for all the info on viruses!  You sound like you have been involved with that field.  The information was fascinating to me and utterly new.

[LBJ10]

Not really. I have a biology degree, but I am more conservation biology. I’m not in a medical field of any kind. I just know stuff from college classes and I also looked up info on myxomatosis. There are some interesting papers out there. A lot of research has been done about how the disease spreads. I have looked up stuff on this disease before, but it is always interesting to look at it from a different angle. Like I said, mostly I was just thinking out loud. If my conclusions are correct or not, I don’t know. LOL The part about influenza does make sense though. You can get the flu many times in your life because the virus mutates rapidly (cold viruses as well). And I know poxviruses don’t mutate very quickly.

[FlemishMom]

The Novibac myxo vaccine actually vaccinates against two viruses – myxo as viral hemorrhagic disease (VHD), also known as rabbit hemorrhagic disease or rabbit calicivirus disease. I had not heards of VHD and then in another forum an Australian mentioned “Calicivirus” but did not connect it up with VHD so I didn’t realize they were the same thing and decided to learn what I could googling. . . . Here’s the Wikipedia link if anyone is interested in learning about this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit_haemorrhagic_disease

This actually sounds worse because it only showed up in China in 1984, reached US by 2000 and apparently we have had outbreaks on farms in several states here but it sounds like people were really smart at containing it. I did not read on yet to see what the symptoms and such are, but following Sarita’s good lead, I thought I would try to educate myself and see what others knew as well. I had never heard of this before, I suppose, because I’ve not personally known anyone who had rabbits infected by it . . .

LBJ10– your biologyy degree and your apparent easiness in reeling off viral classes and activity make me reflect that you must be quite a bit younger than me! I don’t think that sort of knowledge was around back when I was in college! Argh! I am just so impressed and amazed at what is happening in biological research and the sophisticated equipment employed and even moreso, the ready familiarity the next generation has with it. I have a neice who in this summer between her junior and senior years of college has written and been granted a grant for research on a biogenetic topic and she is, to my limited mind and experience, using equipment that I can only dream of its complexity and tackling research issues that just seem cutting edge to me. I used to look at my grandparents and wonder at all the change they had seen in their lives living from the late 1890s into the late 1980s; for the first time I got it that I am seeing even more change than they did because indeed the rate of knowledge increase and technological innovation has indeed accelerated!

[LBJ10]

Yes, VHD was introduced in Australia later because rabbits were building immunity against myxomytosis. It has been seen in the US, but according to wikipedia it has so far been eradicated. It does sound like a scarier disease. In is completely different too, it has a single RNA strand.
Hmm, I don’t know if we had a ton of fancy equipment at my college. I went to a small liberal arts college. I did do some research at the state university and we had some fancy equipment there. I was working with bacteria and fiddling with their DNA, nothing to do with viruses. I think viruses just came up a lot in my classes because people would ask questions about them (lots of pre-med students). That is what was nice about the professors, they would go off on tangents all the time to talk about how something works or why something is the way it is. It is all very interesting, but I had no desire to pursue anything in the medical field. I love ecology and wildlife and such. =)

[Bam]

Does myxi really spred to other species? The Spanish Eagle and lynx don’t get the disease, they are becoming extinct from not getting enough rabbits to eat.

A dog could eat a sick rabbit, then carry the virus with it in it’s mouth and possibly transfer it to another rabbit, but the dog wouldn’t be sick. (House) cats eat sick bunnies all the time and don’t get the disease. There is another disease that can transfer from hares to cats and to people, but that’s a whole other disese, it’s bacterial, not a virus (Tularemia). The main ways of myxi-transfer is through ticks and mosquitoes and direct contact between rabbits.

We see a lot of myxi where I live. There was one outbreak in the fall and another one in late winter and this spring I’ve only seen one rabbit in my community garden, there’s normally lots of them. I’m at my mother’s house now and even here where usually at night you’d see about 30 wild bunnies just outside her garden gate, I’ve seen only one rabbit.

(I always look for rabbits because my dog likes to chase them and I don’t let her.)

[Bam]

Posted By bam on 05/26/2013 01:33 AM
Does myxi really spred to other species? The Spanish Eagle and lynx don’t get the disease, they are becoming extinct from not getting enough rabbits to eat.

A dog could eat a sick rabbit, then carry the virus with it in it’s mouth and possibly transfer it to another rabbit, but the dog wouldn’t be sick. (House) cats eat sick bunnies all the time and don’t get the disease. There is another disease that can transfer from hares to cats and to people, but that’s a whole other disese, it’s bacterial, not a virus (Tularemia). The main ways of myxi-transfer is through ticks and mosquitoes and direct contact between rabbits.

We see a lot of myxi where I live. There was one outbreak in the fall and another one in late winter,   and there would be no mosquitoes and ticks in the winter, especially not this one which was very long and cold. According to what I’ve read, VHD copes with cold vey well and can survive a long time outside it’s host, but myxi is not known to do that.

This spring I’ve only seen one rabbit in my community garden, there’s normally lots of them. I’m at my mother’s house now and even here where usually at night you’d see about 30 wild bunnies just outside her garden gate, I’ve seen only one rabbit.

(I always look for rabbits because my dog likes to chase them and I don’t let her.)

What I’ve read abou myxi is that the virus is mutating into a LESS virulent form. I can be all wrong. I had to interrupt my medical studies and I regret it every day, many times every day.

LBJ; I love what you’re writing especially about the pox-viruses. Small-pox was eradicated rather a long time after myxo was intoduced so there would have been ample time for myxi to infect people before everybody was vaccinated against small-pox? I’ll re-read your post, I’m a bit upset now because my darling Bam isn’t  well.

 

[LBJ10]

It can be spread to other lagomorph species. The symptoms don’t seem to be as severe in wild cottontails though. As far as I know, the virus isn’t mutating to be less virulent. Rabbits were becoming resistant to the virus and passing it on to their offspring. So fewer rabbits die and essentially the virus is less virulent that way. They were actually looking for a more virulent strain to release that would be more effective.
I wasn’t suggesting that people can’t get myxomatosis because of small pox. Flemishmom was just asking if it could mutate in the future and be able to infect humans. Poxviruses have a slow mutation rate. It could also be that if the virus did mutate and could infect humans, that humans may already be resistant because of other poxviruses. I don’t know that or not. I was just thinking out loud to myself. Definitely though, the mutation rate is very slow and the virus is very complicated. Something like influenza, however, mutates rapidly and has a more simple structure.

[Bam]

Thank you LBJ, I hope I didn’t sound critical, I’m always afraid I’m unknowingly offending people (and sometimes I probably am), I never really know because English isn’t my language (I’m Swedish).

I understand now that hares (lepus) can get myxi too only not in a severe form. I’ve clearly misunderstood about the myxi virus becoming less virulent through mutation. I’m very grateful that you share your knowledge.

Just in general: I wan’t to make it clear that although we have myxi every year where I live, it hasn’t transferred to other species and it is a misunderstanding that the Spanish eagle and lynx have died off of myxomatosis, it’s their prey that die off.

And they DID release a predator in Australia to kill the rabbits, they released foxes, and they are a huge problem now because they kill other animals than rabbits and have few enemies of their own. I saw a tv-program about certain kinds of Wallabies becoming near-extict because of the foxes and one other little marsupial that I don’t remember the name of, anyway, they have to have rescue-programs for theses species.

[LBJ10]

You’re okay, I didn’t think you were criticizing at all. You are right that predators have experienced a decline. Not directly from the virus, but indirectly because their prey is gone. I wasn’t aware that foxes were released in Australia to kill the rabbits. That’s interesting. They are so careful about animals being introduced there now because they know their ecosystem can’t handle it. From what you’ve described, I imagine it is like the scenario that happened in Hawaii. They didn’t like the rats there, so they introduced mongoose thinking it would be a natural predator. Instead, the mongoose ate all the native bird eggs.

[MoveDiagonally]

FlemishMom, I received a reply from Merck.

It said:
“I’m sorry at this we do not have this approved to sell in the United States and there is no plans to do so at this time.”

So it looks like they are not working to get the vaccine approved here.

[FlemishMom]

MoveDiagonally, thanks for the update (I’m jealous- (LOL!)-I wonder why they didn’t respond to me?)

[Bam]

Just want to say I’m sorry that you can’t get the vaccine.

[Author]

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