Feline infectious peritonitis (FIP) is an important disease to be aware of. It affects both wild and domestic cats. It occurs worldwide in cats of all breeds and ages, but the disease is most common in young cats less than two years of age. Have a cat that had or passed from FIP and considering adding a new member to your fur family?
Here are some tips and more information on how to prevent it from occurring or spreading in your home.
Feline infectious peritonitis (FIP) is caused by a spontaneous mutation of a harmless feline coronavirus (FCoV).
It is highly infectious and is transmitted indirectly by sharing litter trays.
An estimated 50 %to 90% of cats become infected with one or more strains of feline coronavirus at some time in their lives. The majority of cats (about 90% or more) remain healthy with little or no symptoms. Perhaps 5% to 10% of infected cats display discomfort and less than 1% of cats are admitted to veterinary hospitals for assistance. While any age or breed of cat can develop FIP, the majority of kittens being treated or diagnosed FIP are "pure bred" kittens.
This high percentage of documented cases in those cats maybe attributed to a few factors. The ability to seek help as well as improper breeding practices.
How then can you as a pawrent prevent your kitty from developing the mutation?
Where possible , attain a kitten from a pedigree registered cattery. A good Diet and Multiple dust free litter boxes must be used both by the cattery and in your multiple cat home.
Feed a Diet high in Arginine. Research has shown that cats fed a diet specifically formulated to be deficient in arginine exhibit signs of ammonia toxicity.
Symptoms include drooling, vomiting, lethargy and even convulsions within hours of consuming the diet. Getting enough arginine in your cat’s diet easy if your cat is on diet with sufficient real/ meat proteins source.
Raw proteins, beef, chicken or rabbit has plenty of it. Arginine is a heat sensitive amino acid. It will not be sufficient in a cooked diet.
If your cat is on kibble or wet cooked food only diet and you do not have access to good quality raw meats, explore options like freeze dried raw. These should be given not in the raw coated kibble form but separately where possible.
The quality of freeze dried raw is easily seen in the price tag. The process to freeze dry may not vary between brands but the freshness and grade of the meats being used significantly impacts the quality and cost, which in turn affects how much natural goodness your cat is getting versus synthetic additives .
Proteins start to denature at 41 Degrees Celsius . Exposing the meats to temperatures above 41 destroys many naturally available and easily absorbed amino acids that play a crucial role in your cat’s diet.
Kibbles if fed, should be from an oven baked process instead of extruded kibbles. Although both diets maybe complete, but the health of your pet on either types maybe significantly different in the long run.
The next best possible way to prevent the transmission of FIP is to obtain a cat litter with a higher ability to inhibit FCoV.
Cat litters have been tested and the various types have been shown to have different abilities to inhibit FCoV in vitro.
Litters made with Fuller’s Earth have shown the ability to prevent infection of cell culture, whilst others like pine or sawdust-based cat litters had little inhibitory effect on the virus.
Fuller’s Earth, is a term used to describe clay minerals capable of absorbing their weight in liquid. The most common clays used in cat litters are bentonites, such as sodium bentonite or calcium bentonite, that can swell up to 15 times their original volume. Other common clays added to cat litter mixtures are sepiolite, montmorillonite and kaolinite. Calcium Bentonite however is the compound that is credited with the ability to inhibit the spread.
Calcium bentonite clay is an absorbent kind of clay that typically forms after volcanic ash ages. It’s named after Fort Benton, Wyoming, where the largest source of the clay can be found , but calcium bentonite clay of different qualities are found all over the world. There are many beneficial detoxifying and health benefits to Calcium Bentonite.
Automatic litter boxes are a good way to minimize cats from being in contact with soiled litter.
Stress is another factor and perhaps the highest cause and is increasingly being recognized as an important factor in triggering the mutation.
Cats which develop FIP frequently have a history of stress shortly preceding the onset of FIP clinical signs (Rohrer, Suter, & Lutz, 1993; Riemer, Kuehner, Ritz, Sauter-Louis, & Hartmann, 2016).
Immune stress is especially attributed to the mutation. The development of FIP often occurs shortly after a visit to the veterinary surgeon, or boarding (Riemer et al., 2016); it would be a reasonable question: if the cat become infected there or then?
One quick way to establish whether that was possible is to look at the incubation period: From becoming infected with FCoV to the development of FIP, a period of at least 3 weeks is required. If a cat after coming back from their visit to a vet or boarding, is exhibiting signs of an effusion a week later , she must have been already infected prior to the visit.
Most veterinary clinics do not permit the sharing of litter boxes.
This is why some clinics force kitties to undergo extensive tests including FCoV antibody test along with the routine pre-anaesthetic blood tests, to cover themselves as well as establish whether there was any risk in performing the surgery.
This is not a usual practice, it is stress inducing and is not entirely necessary.
Sometimes the stress of the journey to the vet is sufficient. Speak with your vet or boarding provider if this is a concern.
If one of your kitties has FIP or has been lost to FIP , it is probable that all in-contact cats of an FIP patient will already be infected with FCoV.
Therefore, your other cats will either already have some immunity to FCoV, or will be in early stages of developing FIP.
A cat with FCoV can develop immunity against it. Most will eventual recover from FCoV without intervention. FIP however once diagnosed will require treatment. FCoV is a moderately resistant virus, surviving up to seven weeks in dried-up cat litter particles (Scott, 1988) Your cat's digging and covering of their fecal matter is in fact spreading the virus.
On the bright side, surface FCoV can be killed by most household disinfectants, such as bleach (Addie et al., 2009). Therefore, after the death or diagnosis of a cat with FIP, litter trays should be disinfected using bleach, and soft furnishings steam-cleaned. To be 100% sure that all coronavirus has gone, it is always best to wait at least 2 months before obtaining another cat. If there existing cats in the household who were in contact with the FIP cat, those cats should be tested for FCoV antibodies or monitored for at least 2 months prior to adding a new kitty.
Only after the existing cats have tested seronegative, which may take some months to occur, may a new cat or kitten be introduced.
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