FIP

- overview of current knowledge and personal experiences

Corona Virus and How It Turns Into FIP

How does a tiny kitten encounter the corona virus and then develop FIP (feline infectious peritonitis)? In a multi-cat household, it is very easy for the cats and kittens to be infected. The very common corona virus is carried (mostly) on feces and can be tracked around by the other cats in the household. Most kittens are exposed to the virus as soon as they hit the floor, or if their mother mingles with the other cats or uses the community litter boxes.
In about 95 percent of the exposures, the kitten has a mild viral infection, accompanied by runny poops and maybe a stomach upset and that is that. In maybe one kitten out of 20, the kitten's immune system does not respond properly or

something in the kitten's system goes haywire and the fairly benign virus is mutated into a deadly condition where the vital organs are attacked until death results. The most susceptible cats are the very young or the old and weakened cats. I have now lost 3 kittens from FIP in 9 years, out of dozens of kittens.
The main symptom that appears is a very high temperature that does not respond to anything and lasts for a week or more. In our kitten, the eyes were involved with severe conjunctivitis, but that did not necessarily indicate FIP was involved. I think that the illness (FIP) eventually reached her brain by way of the eyes. She had lesions in her brain, liver, and kidneys.

What You Can Do

Breeders must be aware of the possibility and they must try to keep their catteries as clean as possible and their cats as healthy as possible. And then we have to decide if we want to repeat a breeding that produces a kitten that dies from FIP, indicating an impaired immune system.
There is no actual vaccine that will prevent FIP. There is a so-called FIP vaccine, which is, in fact, a vaccine that has been developed to prevent corona virus. Since there are at least a dozen different corona viruses, the vaccine is only effective against a couple of them. Please do not allow your vet to administer the FIP vaccine. Since most kittens are exposed to the common corona viruses before they are 8 weeks old, it is too late and a waste of money to vaccinate against corona viruses. There is a lot of research being conducted on FIP and the corona viruses and there may eventually be a vaccine that can be administered to very young kittens that will give them protection, but that hasn't happened yet.
One of the most consistent findings about FIP is that it develops (mutates from the corona virus) in a cat or kitten with an impaired immune system.
Giving an inadequate vaccination simply challenges an immune system without developing any useful antibodies to resist further infections.
One of the diagnostic tools used by vets in determining if a kitten might have FIP is the "titer" test.

This is a blood test that determines the antibodies to corona virus (not FIP) that are contained in the cat's blood.
The results are expressed in a one-to-something ratio. Ordinarily, a 1 to zero thru 1 to 400 (1:400) is considered a negative reading. From 1:400, the titers can go up into the 5-digit ratios, such as 1:36,000. None of these readings proves that a cat has FIP. The positive readings only prove that the kitten's immune system has mounted a response to one of the corona viruses. My kitten's "FIP" titer was 1:400. The other 2 kittens that I lost to FIP had negative titers (less than 1:400). This leads me to believe that the titer is useless, and that belief is shared by many, many breeders and vets.
There is some anecdotal evidence that the feline leukemia vaccine may challenge a cat's immune system so much that the immune system is damaged.
The first 2 kittens I lost to FIP had been given the FeLV 2 weeks before they got sick and died from FIP. I no longer give the FeLV to any of my cats and if a new owner gives the vaccine, my health guarantee is null and void at that instant.
My advice to people who have an indoor Korat along with indoor-outdoor cats is to vaccinate the Korat against FeLeuk, but only after the Korat has settled into its new home and is extremely healthy and free of stress.

If You Want to Know More

There is an excellent report on FIP on the CFA website at www.cfainc.org.
Here are several sites (although you can just search for FIP on your browser and find a lot of info):
http://www.winnfelinehealth.org/studies.html - excellent for cattery management information.
www.vetinfo.com/cfip.html - this one is a Q & A format. You can read everything but you can't ask questions without subscribing.
Dr. Janet Foley, DVM, PhD, is a researcher at UCDavis (University of California at Davis) and some of her information is included on the Winn Feline Foundation website as well as the CFA website. (Winn FF is part of CFA's organization).

Do Not Euthanize Only Because of High Titres

One of the saddest things about FIP is the lack of knowledge that the veterinarians have about it. Many vets will simply recommend euthanasia on the basis of a titer test. Some breeders have euthanized ALL of their healthy cats when one cat died of FIP. That is the real tragedy of FIP.
How to deal with it if you get a sick kitten? Isolate it from its siblings, particularly if it runs a very high temperature for more than a couple of days. Actually, by the time the kitten begins running the high temperature, it is probably too late to stop the spread of the corona virus, since that happened some time before the high temps begin. Now, I have to tell you that I've had several cats and kittens who ran high temps for several days and later recovered. In several cases, my (very good) vets told me that they thought the cats had FIP.

My practice is to isolate, medicate, and wait.
I hope that I've answered most of your questions, or that you can find answers at one of the various websites.
I've said this before, many times: breeding cats is not for the faint-hearted. Mother Nature only expects about 20 percent of the kittens to survive. We challenge her every day, but she prevails every now and then. That doesn't make it any easier to lose one of those lovely little creatures, but we have to get up and continue on.
BTW, all the time I've been writing this, Maggie, the one remaining kitten from that litter that we have here has been nestled against my chest, inside my robe, sound asleep. I can feel her heart beating.