Emerging Rabbit Haemorrhagic Disease Virus 2 (RHDV2) at the Gates of the African Continent

Until the beginning of this decade, the genetic characterization of rabbit haemorrhagic disease virus (RHDV) from Iberian Peninsula had revealed the existence of two genogroups, G1 and sporadically G6. In 2010, the new emerging rabbit haemorrhagic disease variant, RHDV2 or RHDVb, was described in France, from where it has rapidly spread throughout Europe, including Iberian Peninsula countries. Nevertheless, although cases of rabbit haemorrhagic disease (RHD) have been reported in the Canary Islands, a Spanish archipelago located 100km off the coast of Morocco, no genetic characterization of RHDV had been carried out. Consequently, in order to identify the circulating RHDV strains in this archipelago, liver samples of six farm rabbits and fifteen wild rabbits were collected from several areas of the largest island, Tenerife, and analyzed for the presence of RHDV by antigen capture double antibody sandwich ELISA. In case of positive ELISA result, we amplified and sequenced two fragments of the vp60 gene, which were concatenated for phylogenetic purposes. The sequences analysis revealed the presence of RHDV2 in both farm and wild rabbits from several areas of Tenerife. This result constitutes the first finding of RHDV2 in the Canary Islands. These RHDV2 strains found in Tenerife shared two exclusive SNPs that have not been observed in the rest of RHDV2 strains. The identification of RHDV2 and the absence of classic RHDV strains in this study suggest that RHDV2 may be replacing classic strains in Tenerife, as has been also proposed in Iberian Peninsula, France and Azores. Given the proximity of the Canary Islands to the African continent, this result should raise awareness about a possible dispersal of RHDV2 from the Canary Islands to the North of Africa.