Rabbit hemorrhagic disease (RHD) is caused by RHD virus (RHDV) and is one of the most fatal diseases of rabbits. Acute death of rabbits occurred in a farm located in the Gyeonggi province of South Korea. The virus was isolated and confirmed as RHDV based on reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction and hemagglutination assay (HA), and the isolate was designated as KV0801. The nucleotide sequence was deduced. Molecular analysis showed that the KV0801 isolate can be classified as a pandemic antigenic variant strain, RHDVa. The VP60 nucleotide sequence and deduced amino acid homology between KV0801 and other Korean isolate, RHF89, which was isolated in 1988, were 92.1 and 94.3%, respectively. The pathogenicity of the KV0801 isolate at an HA titer ranging from 16,384 to 0.16 HA units was evaluated in five-month-old SFP rabbits. The rabbits inoculated with KV0801 isolate containing more than 1.63 HA units died within six days of inoculation. These results suggest that a highly pathogenic RHDVa is circulating in the rabbit populations of Korea.

The scarcity of green during summer months imposes nutritional stress on farm animals. In this study we examined the effect of nutritional stress on various biochemical parameters of rabbits.Control and green deprived groups each of 20, weaned New Zealand White rabbits, of either sex, were randomly placed and observed for two months. Then green was re-introduced in deprived group for again two months. Blood sera harvested at every 15th day and analyzed using RA 50 Chemistry auto analyzer. Significant (p0.05) decrease of alkaline phosphatase (AKP), lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) and increase in gamma glutamyl transpeptidase (GGT) and serum cholesterol was observed in rabbits green deprived group.

The quick diagnosis of Newcastle disease requires known serum against the disease. In this study, an attempt was made to raise anti- Newcastle disease virus hyperimmune serum in rabbits. Three different inoculum were prepared to inoculate in the rabbits; (i) Fresh harvested allantoic fluid containing Newcastle disease virus (NDV) Mukteswar vaccine strain; (ii) Freshly harvested ND virus pelletted through centrifuging at 40,000 rpm for two hours and resuspended in normal saline and (iii) Pelletted virus (centrifuged and suspended as in ii) with addition of incomplete Freund's adjuvant. It was observed during the monitoring of haemagglutination inhibition (HI) titre that the serum collected after series of inoculation of 1st and 2nd inoculum provided maximum titre upto 1:256. However, the serum collected after series of injection of 3rd inoculum gave maximum HI titre 1:1024. This study suggested that antigen containing incomplete Freund's adjuvant provided better immune response against Newcastle disease virus in rabbits.