Prevalence of Feline Leukemia Virus and Antibodies to Feline Immunodeficiency Virus in Cats in Norway

Abstract

Serum samples from 224 Norwegian cats were analyzed for the presence of feline leukemia virus (FeLV) p27 common core antigen, and for antibodies to feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV). Ninety specimens originated from the serum bank at the central referral clinic at the Norwegian College of Veterinary Medicine, which had been collected during the years 1983-1989; 67 sera were submitted from veterinarian practitioners; while 67 sera originated from cats presented for euthanasia. The cats were classified into one "healthy" and one "sick" group.Only 2.2 YO of sick cats and 1.2 % of healthy cats showed FeLV antigenemia, a finding which is lower than which has been reported from many other countries.The prevalence of FIV antibodies was 10.

Risk factors and effect of selective removal on retroviral infections prevalence in Belgian stray cats

“…Taking into account the sensitivity and specificity of the test used (Hartmann and others 2007), the estimated true prevalence for FIV was 19.3%; however with wide 95% CI (14.7% to 24.0%), which reduces slightly the reliability of this estimation. This FIV seroprevalence is much higher than most of those previously reported from European countries, including northern Belgium, whatever the lifestyle or health status of the population studied (Hosie and others 1989, Lutz and others 1990, Hartmann and Hinze 1991, Arjona and others 1992, Bandecchi and others 1992, Ueland and Lutz 1992, Fuchs and others 1994, Peri and others 1994, Sukura and others 1992, Holznagel and others 1997, Knotek and others 1999, Dorny and others 2002, Muirden 2002, Bandecchi and others 2006, Gleich and others 2009, Murray and others 2009, Duarte and others 2012, Spada and others 2012, Rypuła and others 2014). In addition, the mean FIV seroprevalence over three years in the present study is likely an underestimation of the actual prevalence, since FIV-positive cats were systematically removed from the population since 2010, which introduced a bias in the estimation of crude FIV seroprevalence during the years 2011 and 2012.…”

Prevalence of feline leukaemia virus and antibodies to feline immunodeficiency virus and feline coronavirus in stray cats sent to an RSPCA hospital

“…The main difference was the apparently lower prevalence of FeLV; a positive FeLV result was recorded in 1-4 per cent of the healthy cats and 6-9 per cent of the sick cats, less than observed by Hosie and others (1989) and Shelton and others (1989) who found that 12 to 18 per cent of privately owned sick cats were FeLV positive. However, in Norway only 1-2 per cent of healthy owned cats and 2-2 per cent of sick cats were positive for FeLV (Ueland and Lutz 1992). This may be due to the more solitary lifestyle of stray cats, because FeLV is spread predominantly by close social contact.…”

WSAVA Guidelines for the vaccination of dogs and cats

“…The basis for this categorization was: (1) questions over the cross-protection between subtypes of virus included in the vaccine and those subtypes and recombinants in the field in different geographical areas (Hosie et al 1995, Dunham et al 2006, Yamamoto et al 2007, Coleman et al 2014, Beczkowski et al 2015a [EB1], (2) the interference of the vaccine with antibody testing used for diagnosis of FIV infection (Hosie & Beatty 2007) [EB1], and (3) the fact that this is an adjuvanted vaccine that must be given repeatedly (a primary course of three injections and annual revaccination) to a species susceptible to injection site sarcoma. The VGG is aware that in some parts of the world, there remains a significant prevalence of FIV seropositivity and/or infection (Bennett et al 1989, Hosie et al 1989, Friend et al 1990, Glennon et al 1991, Bandecchi et al 1992, Hitt et al 1992, Ueland and Lutz 1992, Jones et al 1995, Hofmann-Lehmann et al 1996, Yilmaz et al 2000, Lee et al 2002, Muirden 2002, Norris et al 2007, Gleich et al 2009, Ravi et al 2010, Bande et al 2012, Chang Fung Martel et al 2013, Rypula et al 2014 [EB1]. There are now discriminatory serological tests (Kusuhara et al 2007, Levy et al 2008, Westman et al 2015 and more robust polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing for the diagnosis of FIV infection (Arjona et al 2007, Wang et al 2010, Morton et al 2012 [EB1].…”