Viral Diseases

This chapter focuses on the naturally occurring viral diseases of rabbits. Poxviruses cause several important diseases in domestic and wild mammals and birds. Infection with poxviruses usually results in relatively mild disease involving the skin of the infected animals, however, generalized and often fatal disease may also occur, for example, in myxomatosis in rabbits. Close antigenic relationships exist among many poxviruses derived from different animal species. In spite of close antigenic relationships, the poxviruses of rabbits that produce distinct disease syndromes are discussed as separate entities. Virus of the genus Papillomavirus cause papillomas in various animal species and includes two rabbit viruses, the cottontail rabbit papillomavirus and the rabbit oral papillomavirus. The genus Polyomavirus contains one virus of rabbits, the rabbit kidney vacuolating virus. Papillomatosis of wild cottontail rabbits is characterized by the presence of horny warts, usually on the neck, shoulders, or abdomen. The warts begin as red raised areas at the site of infection, grow to become typical papillomas with rough rounded surfaces, and may later develop into large, keratinized horny growths. The rabbit kidney vacuolating virus was isolated in primary rabbit kidney cell cultures from papillomas of cottontail rabbits collected in Kansas. This virus causes vacuolar cytopathic effects in cell cultures. The virus resembles the cottontail rabbit (Shope) papil lomavirus but is a distinct virus. It does not produce papillomas when inoculated into rabbits and does not immunize rabbits against rabbit papillomavirus.