Hi Nina:
When Cotton first turned up positive, I pulled out everyone's records and
verified them at the vet's office. All of my established cats had been
vaccinated at one time or another. Cricket actually had 2 vaccines. I have
a couple of theories about her exposure turning into contracting the
disease. Any comments welcome:
#1. Cricket's vaccine did not produce enough antibodies to make her immune
into adulthood to Cotton's particular genotype of FeLV. Or perhaps it was
not given correctly one of the times, causing it to be less effective. Or
perhaps there was human error, and it was mistakenly omitted once.
#2. Cotton's FeLV is particularly contagious. If you remember, he passed
it to another seemingly healthy adult, who became viremic and lost his life.
Cotton's former housemate, Kuma was about 5 years old, and I personally
witnessed him grooming Cotton. Kuma became very ill soon after he came to
live with us, and I am suspecting it was the stress of the move that caused
him to become so ill. So sad. He was a very nice boy.
and #3. and the least likely, perhaps Cricket's ELISA test was incorrect
when she was tested as a baby, or she had a latent form of the disease.
The vet I go to now still thinks that it is rather hard for healthy adult
cats who do not groom each other to become infected. I think Cricket and
Cotton fighting made her the exception. But if he did bite her and she
licked her wounds shortly after the bite, transmission could still occur.
That is the most likely scenario. Unfortunately, there were fights both
before we learned of Cotton's status.
Sandy
----- Original Message -----
From: "Nina" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, May 01, 2006 11:50 PM
Subject: Re: mixing
Sandy,
From what I understood about vaccines, if Cricket was vaccinated even just
once with a booster, than she should have been protected. Sorry to be a
pest, but are you absolutely sure that her kitten vaccines included felv?
Most of the vets I've used don't vaccinate for felv unless expressly asked
to. Your news about Cricket kind of shoots my theory to hell, if she was
indeed vaccinated, (esp more than once), for felv and she had tested neg
as a kitten, and she was an adult when she was exposed to felv... She
could be the exception to the rule, but it isn't good news for mixing in
general, or of course, for poor Cricket.
