An outbreak of Myxomatosis

I know that this photograph will upset many of you but my journal records life as I find it, warts and all.
The rabbits in our area are currently suffering from an outbreak of Myxomatosis, a truly disease  caused by the Myxoma virus. Affected rabbits develop skin tumours, severe eye infections leading to blindness, followed by fatigue and fever; they usually die within 14 days of contracting the disease. It was first observed in Uruguay in laboratory rabbits in the late 19th century. In 1938 it was introduced into Australia  in an attempt to control the rapidly expanding population of rabbits that had themselves been introduced from Europe.
The disease is spread by direct contact with an affected animal or by being bitten by fleas or mosquitoes that have fed on an infected rabbit. The myxomatosis virus does not replicate in these insect hosts, but can be physically carried by an insect's mouthparts, i.e. from an infected rabbit to another susceptible animal.
In Australia, the virus was first field-tested for population control in 1938 and a full-scale release was performed in 1950. It was devastatingly effective, reducing the estimated rabbit population from 600 million to 100 million in two years. However, the rabbits remaining alive were those least affected by the disease. Genetic resistance to myxomatosis was observed soon after the first release, and descendants of the survivors acquired partial immunity in the first two decades. Resistance has been increasing slowly since the 1970s; the disease now kills about 50% of infected rabbits. 
The disease was deliberately introduced to the UK in 1953. The first outbreak in the UK to be officially confirmed was in Bough Beech, Kent in September of that year. It was encouraged in the UK as an effective rabbit bio-control measure; this was done by placing sick rabbits in burrows, though this is illegal in the UK. As a result, it is estimated that more than 99% of rabbits in the UK were killed by the outbreak.
Since then rabbit numbers had recovered, as a result of increasing genetic resistance, or acquired immunity to the Myxomatosis virus. 
Sadly, a new viral disease, Rabbit Haemorrhagic Disease, is now causing further massive declines in rabbit numbers