SHORT COMMUNICATION Fast specific field detection of RHDVb K. P. Dalton 1 | I. Nicieza 1 | A. Podadera 1 | D. de Llano 1 | J. M. Martin Alonso 1 | J. R. de los Toyos 2 | M. Garcıa Oca ~ na 3 | F. V  azquez-Villa 4 | B. Velasco 5 | O. Landeta 5 | F. Parra 1 1 Instituto Universitario de Biotecnologıa de Asturias, Departamento de Bioquımica y Biologıa Molecular, Edificio Santiago Gasc on, Universidad de Oviedo, Campus El Cristo, Oviedo, Spain 2 Area de Inmunologıa, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad de Oviedo, Oviedo, Spain 3 Servicios Cientıficos T ecnicos, Campus El Cristo, Universidad de Oviedo, Oviedo, Spain 4 Departamento de Cirugıa, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad de Oviedo, Oviedo, Spain 5 Certest Biotec S.L., San Mateo de Gallego, Zaragoza, Spain Correspondence F. Parra, Departamento de Bioquımica y Biologıa Molecular, Edificio Santiago Gasc on, Campus El Cristo, Universidad de Oviedo, Oviedo, Spain. Email: fparra@uniovi.es Funding information Spanish Ministerio de Economıa y Competi- tividad, Grant/Award Number: AGL2013- 48550-C2-1-R; Principado de Asturias (Spain), Grant/Award Number: GRUPIN14- 099. Summary This work describes a simple and rapid test for field detection of the emerging rab- bit pathogen RHDVb. The assay is specific for RHDVb, showing no cross-reactivity with other RHDV types giving a specific result in under 10 min using rabbit liquid exudates or liver homogenate samples taken at necropsy. KEYWORDS calicivirus, diagnostics, emerging diseases, field detection, lagovirus, RHDVb, veterinary epidemiology 1 | INTRODUCTION The first cases of rabbit haemorrhagic disease due to the so-called new variant RHDV in France (Le Gall-Recule et al., 2011) were soon followed by reports of similar cases in Spain (Dalton et al., 2012) noticeably affecting young rabbits. The authors suggested the name RHDVb for this apparently new rabbit pathogen. A different nomen- clature (RHDV2) was suggested by others for this type of virus (Le Gall-Recule et al., 2013) which soon emerged in other European countries (Baily, Dagleish, Graham, Maley, & Rocchi, 2014; Puggioni et al., 2013; Simpson, Everest, & Westcott, 2014; Westcott et al., 2014), in Australia (Hall et al., 2015) and in Canada (OIE, 2016). RHDVb has spread rapidly over the entire Iberian Peninsula and on the Azores and Canary Islands (Abrantes et al., 2013; Dalton, Nicieza, Abrantes, Esteves, & Parra, 2014; Duarte et al., 2015; Mar- tin-Alonso, Martin-Carrillo, Garcia-Livia, Valladares, & Foronda, 2016) becoming a real threat to the biodiversity, affecting not only the native rabbit populations but also associated endangered predators (Delibes-Mateos, Ferreira, Carro, Escudero, & Gortazar, 2014). RHDVb has become the dominant RHDV detected (Dalton et al., 2014; Lopes et al., 2015), and the recent description of recombinant forms suggests the presence of RHDV G1 and RHDVb circulating concurrently (Lopes et al., 2015). Due to the lack of cross-protection observed in RHDV or RHDVb-vaccinated animals, RHD control via vaccination should be achieved using both vaccine types, However, the existence of a reliable and fast field detection method test, such Received: 25 October 2016 DOI: 10.1111/tbed.12607 Transbound Emerg Dis 2016; 1–3 wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/tbed © 2017 Blackwell Verlag GmbH | 1