Detection of rabbit haemorrhagic disease virus 2 (GI.2) in Poland.

In this paper we present the first cases of rabbit haemorrhagic disease virus 2 (RHDV2 - GI.2) in Poland. The virus was detected in liver samples of RHD-suspected rabbits from Lodzkie and west Pomeranian voivodeships. In both cases, the typical clinical symptoms of the disease were observed despite the fact that the rabbits were previously vaccinated against RHD. In order to extend the analysis of the RHDV2 strain infecting the rabbits, the entire VP60 and NSP genes were amplified and sequenced. The results of rRT-PCR assay have shown that tested RHDV samples were positive for the presence of RHDV2. In the phylogenetic analysis of vp60gene the first Polish RHDV isolates (RED 2016 and VMS 2017) clustered together with the reference RHDV2, meaning they represent new evolutionary RHDV linkeages. The first Polish RHDV2 isolates showed about 97% nucleotide sequence identity with the reference RHDV2 strains and approximately 18% difference from classic RHDV and RHDVa variants.