In Mexico, an outbreak occurred in 1988 with the disease eradicated by 1992. In 1995, as a result of a field trial accident on Wardang Island, Australia, the virus escaped and killed 10 million rabbits in 8 weeks on mainland Australia. This includes most show, pet, and laboratory rabbits. An exception to this is a population of rabbits of the genus Oryctolagus that live on the San Juan Islands, Washington. The disease progresses rapidly, with death occurring approximately 1-3 days after initial infection.
Rabbits surviving infection can become carriers of the virus and spread disease to other rabbits.
Killed virus vaccines to protect domestic rabbits have been developed in Europe and used in Europe, Australia and New Zealand. The development of several recombinant vaccines has been reported in the literature. These estimates do not include rabbits which are pets or show rabbits. In 1997 there were 13,320 farms with rabbits in the US, with a total inventory of 530,189 rabbits. Texas had the largest number of rabbit farms, while California had the largest number of rabbits.