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Feline coronavirus in the intestinal contents of cats with feline infectious peritonitis
Author(s) -
Addie D. D.,
Toth S.,
Herrewegh A. A. P. M.,
Jarrett O.
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
veterinary record
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.261
H-Index - 99
eISSN - 2042-7670
pISSN - 0042-4900
DOI - 10.1136/vr.139.21.522
Subject(s) - feline infectious peritonitis , veterinary medicine , medicine , covid-19 , infectious disease (medical specialty) , pathology , disease
THE question of whether or not cats with clinical feline infectious peritonitis (FIP) excrete the causative agent, feline coronavirus (FCoV), is important to the practising veterinary surgeon for two reasons. First, they have to know whether a cat with FIP in their surgery poses a hazard to other cats. Secondly, they may have to advise owners of a cat with FIP whether it is safe to obtain another cat while the affected cat is still alive (bearing in mind that cats with dry or non-effusive FIP can live for many weeks or months). In experimental infections, cats with FTP have been shown not to shed FCoV by the time they are clinically ill (Stoddart and others 1988). However, in this communication, the authors show that FCoV can be detected in the faeces and intestinal contents of cats which are naturally infected and suffering from FIP. The most intractable obstacle to the complete understanding of the epidemiology of FlP has been the near impossibility of detecting FCoV in infected cats. Most attempts to isolate the virus in cell culture from cases of FIP, or from cats suspected of carrying the virus, have failed and only about 20 isolates have been made worldwide since the virus was identified over 30 years ago. The recent development of the reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) to detect FCoV RNA, presumably representing whole virus, in faeces and body fluids of cats (Herrewegh and oth-