Dear Minister for Primary Industries,

RHDV-K5.
The current advise from the Australian Veterinary Association regarding the Vaccination against RHDV1a-K5 now states.
This experiment indicates that the currently registered vaccine may continue to protect pet rabbits against this disease after release of K5, though further study will be required to validate this going forward. The AVA recommends that rabbits are vaccinated against RHDV (calicivirus) as follows: Kittens: 4, 8, 12 weeks of age, then 6 monthly for life, Adults: 2 vaccinations 1 month apart, then 6 monthly for life, This protocol is off-label. Cylap is not registered for 6 monthly use.

The Current advise from the Australian RSPCA Now states. K5 (belonging to the RHDV1a family). This new strain, which was found to be more infectious than the Czech strain, also causes RHD and death in non-immune rabbits. Of concern is the lack of sufficient evidence to demonstrate that the Cylap® vaccine will provide adequate protection against K5 and that it is not currently registered to specifically protect against this strain. A small pilot study to evaluate the effectiveness of the Cylap® vaccine against K5 has indicated some protection but further trials need to be undertaken to obtain conclusive results.

Recommendation by the OIE that any given vaccine strain should be homologous to the strain identified during an outbreak, and releasing K5 as a new strain is basically a deliberate outbreak so the advice stands – in other words, a specific vaccine is recommended to protect against K5

The Australian RSPCA states that Full protection against RHDV1 (Czech), RHDV1a (K5) and RHDV2 requires the development of a 'trivalent' (against three different infectious agents) vaccine using these particular viruses. Research is urgently needed to develop such a vaccine.

So, given the right checks and balances and the wider picture view of balancing the needs of all New Zealanders which does include the owners of 116,000 pet rabbits which contribute over $175,000,000 to the economy.

Why does MPI not fund / foster / promote the research into a vaccine to protect against the actions in the management of Wild rabbits given that they fund research into the virus?
Why does the check and balance not include funding into a vaccine for the virus it itself funds as per OIE directives?
Why are Landcare (funded by MPI) not publicly updating their information on the vaccines ineffectiveness?

Yours faithfully,

Gary Stephenson