An Outbreak of Viral Haemorrhagic Pneumonia(Tentative Name) of Rabbits in Korea

토끼의 바이러스성 출혈성 폐렴(잠정명칭) 발생

The pathological and microbiological studies were carried out to investigate an acute, febrile, highly fetal, infectious disease of rabbits that had occurred in the Winter and in the Spring and that had begun to be reported in Korea from November, 1985. The clinical signs of this disease were characterized by high fever, lethargy, piercing shriek, convulsion, and sudden death with epistaxis, but often they were not observed. The predominant pathogical findings were severe congestion and hamorrhage in trachea, dark brown discoloration of liver by diffuse necrosis or acute viral hepatitis, and hamorrhagic damages of lung, heart, spleen, kidney, etc. The etiological agent was a small round virus, in 25-35nm in diameter and without envelope, thus looking like a picorna virus. This disease resembled what was called the 'Viral Hamorrhagic Pneumonia in Rabbits'(tentative name) that had been reported for the first time in China in 1984. It will be desirable that the disease should be renamed as the 'Viral Hemorrhagic Fever in Rabbits', the 'Acute Viral Hepatitis in Rabbits', etc. because of its charateristics and the basis of pathological findings. An inactivated vaccine is now in the process of preparation for the prophylaxis of this viral disease.