Vaccinations for cats

There are a great many vaccines that help to keep cats from falling ill. Which of them a kitten or an adult cat is given depends on its age, on the vaccinations it has had before, on your vet’s opinion, and on the part of the world you live in.

The most important vaccinations

Rabies

Every cat has to be vaccinated against rabies, whether it is let outdoors or kept in the house at all times. No exceptions. Even a cat that never leaves the house can catch it from a mouse or a bat that happens to get in. The disease is fatal to the cat and to its owner alike, and there is no treatment for it. Rage, weakness, irritability, convulsions — all of these are how the horrible thing shows itself. Rabies spreads through saliva, chiefly by way of bites. The virus, like most others, has an incubation period, which sometimes runs to twelve months. Since most people have the foresight to vaccinate their dogs against this deadly disease, cats now head the list of domestic animals most often infected with rabies. There is no excuse for it! Rabies kills cats, and it is besides one of the few diseases that can kill you and your children too. Hardly worth the risk merely because taking the cat to the vet is a nuisance, is it?

Feline leukaemia

The feline leukaemia virus passes most readily by blood and saliva, but it can also be found in urine and faeces. It therefore passes from one cat to another when they eat or drink from the same bowl, use the same litter tray, lick one another, or fight with an infected cat.

Infected cats can behave and look like healthy animals for years, and in all that time they can infect other cats. This is why every cat, whether it is let outdoors or not, should be vaccinated, and why every new cat that appears in your house should be tested and vaccinated as well. Why take the risk? The vaccine exists — use it!

These shots are given when the kitten is nine weeks old, again three weeks later, and after that once every year. Get hold of this vaccine!

Feline immunodeficiency virus

Feline immunodeficiency virus is one you cannot protect your cat from with a vaccine. It is the counterpart of the AIDS virus in people and it is fatal to cats. Unlike the human virus, moreover, it is passed chiefly by bites in fights. It cannot, at any rate, be passed to people or to other kinds of animal. No vaccine against the disease has reached the market yet, though work on one goes on steadily. Since there is no vaccine, the best protection for your cat is to keep her indoors all the time.

Feline infectious peritonitis

Feline infectious peritonitis (FIP) is the second main cause of death from infectious disease in cats. Before 1991 there was no vaccine. Now there is one, so use it! Passing from one animal to another by the usual routes — saliva, urine or faeces — this hardy little killer can survive in the surroundings for weeks on end. That is one more reason for every cat to be vaccinated. It is a very nasty disease, showing itself in fever, depression, anorexia (loss of appetite) and a general wretchedness. Most cats die once infected.

The degree of protection the vaccine gives, according to the manufacturer, reaches 50–70%, but there are independent studies of the question whether the vaccine works at all. Earlier work (1992) from Cornell University showed that the antibody produced after vaccination made the disease worse. There have been several reports of cats dying of FIP within a week of the injection, though no scientific proof of the cause has been examined.

The vaccine will not help a cat that is infected at present or has recently had FIPV (or FECV). There is therefore NO POINT WHATEVER in vaccinating cats that already carry a coronavirus antibody titre or have been infected by another cat.

Feline influenza

This disease is also known as pneumonitis, which is not to be confused with pneumonia. Abyssinians, Burmese and Siamese are the most susceptible to it. There is an effective vaccine against it. It is not passed to people.

Infectious enteritis (panleukopenia)

This extremely contagious disease, also called feline plague or feline fever, brings on fever, diarrhoea, anorexia, nausea and vomiting, and dehydration comes with them. It is a hardy virus that can live in the surroundings for months, waiting for some cat to come along and be infected. It is a serious illness and often kills, but if you give your cat all the shots she needs she has nothing to fear. These agents are given every three weeks; the course should be started between six and eight weeks of age and finished by the time the kitten is fourteen weeks old.

Feline viral rhinotracheitis

Rhinotracheitis is a herpes virus and, like herpes in people, it keeps coming back. It is almost certainly the commonest cause of chronic conjunctivitis in cats. It does not respond to any antibacterial preparation, for the good reason that it is not a bacterium, and antiviral eye drops are not very effective either. Even after a cat recovers from the illness the virus causes, she stays a carrier of it for the rest of her life. The disease produces the symptoms of an extraordinarily bad head cold — coughing, sneezing, watering eyes, discharge from the nose, laboured breathing, and those are only some of them. Protection against it usually comes with the vaccination against feline plague.