[livingwith]

Tullio (male) came to us as a foster kitten 2 yrs ago from a shelter w/ 3 other kittens. Tullio and 2 others developed upper resp infections, the other one had very bad diarhhea, but all recovered. One yr later one of the male foster kittens developed FIP and died. 2 (females) are fine in their new homes, and Tullio still lives with us and is now 2 yrs/old.
He has had a weepy eye ever since he was a kitten, otherwise he seems very healthy. No amount of antibiotics clear up his eye. We have 3 ot...Read the full article

[trissie]

Not really - according to latest studies, FIPV cannot be transmitted between cats. Regular corona viruses can be spread and your cat might be a carrier, but the type that cause FIP can only develop as a pathologic mutation of the corona virus in a cat. Once the virus mutates, it doesn't leave the cat's body the way normal corona virus does.

A cat that was never exposed to the original corona virus will never get FIP - but the corona virus can be found in 80% of cat population. Why some cats develop this deadly disease and others (only 1% of all cats brought to veterinarians is diagnosed with FIP) don't, is a question that has no known answer. Stress, immunity problems, combination of other diseases, genetic predisposition... any of these or combination thereof can be the decisive factor

Unfortunatelly, I've had to do a lot of research on FIP in the last week :-(

[Markimus]

Is it true that 80% of the cat population has the corona virus? I just had a cat come up positive with a low titer number.

[trissie]

Is it true that 80% of the cat population has the corona virus? I just had a cat come up positive with a low titer number.

About that number, yes. A positive test on corona virus means nothing so far - as far as I understand it, only a little over 1% of the cats that are positive on corona viruses will actually develop the FIP mutation. If you want to help it, have a test done on FIV and FELV, as these might have something to do with the mutation (they have impact on the cat's immunity system) - from what our vet told me, there are measures that can be taken so that the cat's chances to get FIP might get lower.

[Markimus]

We had tests done for FIV and FELV and both came up negative. Just a positive for the corona virus. I have not heard of any measure you can take to lower a cats chances of getting FIP. I'd be interested in hearing about that.

thanks

[trissie]

We had tests done for FIV and FELV and both came up negative. Just a positive for the corona virus. I have not heard of any measure you can take to lower a cats chances of getting FIP. I'd be interested in hearing about that.

thanks

Well, if your cat is negative on FIV and FELV, than the only measures you can take is probably not stressing her out (which, taking into account you've gone through all of this, you likely wouldn't do anyway). And of course, with negative tests, you can have your cat vaccinated against FELV.

If the cat would be positive on FIV/FELV, than those two, untreated, could possibly lead to development of FIP - so treating the cat with something that helps her immunity would indeed improve the cat's chances of not developing FIP later on.

But, with FIP being such an oddly behaving illness, there are no decent clinical studies... but from what our vet told us, a lot of cats diagnosed with FIP are also positive on FELV/FIV, and with FIP being a very quick illness, the FELV/FIV infection had to be there before - so it could have been the reason for the occurance of FIP.