History
RHD first appeared in the Winter of 1983 in Jiangsu Province of the People's Republic of China. It was first isolated and characterized by S. J. Liu et al in 1984 Scientists cannot pinpoint its exact origins; however, it is believed the disease emerged from a virulent calicivirus spreading asymptomatically in European rabbit populations, particularly in the German Democratic Republic. The Chinese outbreak was spread by the angora rabbit, which had originated in Europe. Fourteen million domesticated rabbits died within nine months in the outbreak.
In 1984 the virus that caused the disease was identified. The virus spread westward and reached Europe in 1988. The virus has since appeared in Mexico, Cuba, Australia, New Zealand and the USA. In 1992, the United Kingdom reported its first case of RHD in domestic show rabbits. By the late 1990s, RHD stretched to forty countries and had become endemic in wild rabbit populations in Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Cuba. In Europe there was a rapid increase in research into RHD, due to the importance of the commercial breeding of rabbits for meat and fur production.
The first reported case in the United States was in Iowa on March 9, 2000. The affected population included Palominos and California Whites. By April 6, 25 of the 27 affected rabbits had died as a result of RHD. In order to contain the disease, the remaining two rabbits were euthanized. No new introductions of rabbits were placed on the farm for two years after the discovery of RHD and August 1999 was the last time rabbits left and/or returned to the farm. The United States experienced other outbreaks of RHD in 2001 (Utah, Illinois, New York) and 2005 (Indiana).
Read more about this topic: Rabbit Haemorrhagic Disease
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“We know only a single science, the science of history. One can look at history from two sides and divide it into the history of nature and the history of men. However, the two sides are not to be divided off; as long as men exist the history of nature and the history of men are mutually conditioned.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
“The myth of independence from the mother is abandoned in mid- life as women learn new routes around the mother—both the mother without and the mother within. A mid-life daughter may reengage with a mother or put new controls on care and set limits to love. But whatever she does, her child’s history is never finished.”
—Terri Apter (20th century)
“We are told that men protect us; that they are generous, even chivalric in their protection. Gentlemen, if your protectors were women, and they took all your property and your children, and paid you half as much for your work, though as well or better done than your own, would you think much of the chivalry which permitted you to sit in street-cars and picked up your pocket- handkerchief?”
—Mary B. Clay, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 3, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)