Do you know about Feline Distemper Virus?

While many people may be familiar with distemper and parvovirus in dogs 🐶, they may not have heard of feline distemper, or panleukopenia. However, feline distemper🐱 is classified as a parvovirus and has many similarities to canine parvovirus. It is a severe, life-threatening, highly infectious disease of cats❕

✨It targets rapidly dividing cells such as intestinal epithelial cells and bone marrow stem cells. Consequently, the cats affected by this virus can develop diarrhea and vomiting and subsequently, dehydration. On a blood cell count (CBC), there is often a marked decrease in white blood cell count📉

✨The prognosis is grave to guarded; the best chance of survival is via hospitalization at a veterinary clinic🏥

✨The good news is, there is a very effective vaccine (FVRCP)

✨Due to the very contagious nature of this disease and the facts that cats can spread this virus for over a month after their illness and also the fact it is extremely difficult to remove from the environment, it is crucial💥 to keep cats up-to-date on their FVRCP vaccine and keep cats with signs of illness separate from other cats

Take home points? 📝Pet owners - Make sure both your canine and feline friends are up-to-date on their distemper vaccines and vet staff – please keep educating 🗣feline owners about the importance of vaccinating even their indoor felines as this is considered a core vaccination of cats!✔️

References:

1) Veterinary Partner. Veterinarypartner.com

2) Tilley, L. P., & Smith, F. W. (2005). The 5-minute veterinary consult: Canine and feline. Philadelphia: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.

3) Yin, S. A. (2010). The small animal veterinary nerdbook. Davis, CA: CattleDog Pub.