FIV - positive?

I'm in desperate need of help about this virus, and i hope anyone can give me some facts and help...
To start, i appologise for my terrible english, but i hope you understand what i write anyway

I hav 4 cats all indoors. For 1 week ago my female tested positive for FIV, i became very uppset ofcours, the reason she was tested was only because i was planning to take a litter (?) from her this spring.

Now to the strange part. One year ago, she was negative, and all of my cats are indoors-they dont meet any other cats.

So i took her and the other cats to the vet and tested them all again. And all the other 3 cats are negative - the female still shows positive. We have sent their bloodsampels to a laboratory for more information, and i ofcourse hope that something is wrong with her tests. The tests that they took at the vet both times were "fast" ones, and ive got the resault in 10 minutes. How usual is it with false-positive tests? Or is there perhaps something that could give positive resaut for FIV in these tests anyway? I think of vaccines for different virus for exampel. My female is the onlyone of my cats who is vaccinated for chlamydia-is this something that can effect the FIV-testresault?

I mean - how else could she have got the virus? Is it even posible? 4 indoor cats who never seen any other cat, negative last year? No bitings, no fightings - nothing...

Please help me

I don't have a lot of information to help you but what I have "heard" is that these tests do have a high rate of false positives and false negatives. I could be wrong though, so hopefully someone with more knowledge than me will come along.
I'm sorry for this bad news and I've got my fingers crossed that your cat is actually fiv free!!

Devlyn

I really don't know much, but I'm thinking that the FIV test isn't all that accurate. This looks like a good website for you to look at.

I'm not familiar with how FIV is spread, but it is possible that she tested a false negative when she came into you're home.

I don't know a whole lot, but 2 things came to mind.
First, you said you were going to bread her this spring. Did she have a litter sometime in the last year? If she was exposed to another cat that was positive & you didn't know it that could be what happend.
Second, how old was she when she was tested the 1st time. I'm not possitive, but I believe there is something about the age a cat is tested?

http://www.fabcats.org/fivhomepage.html

This link is to the Feline Advisory Bureau - and straight to their information on FIV. As far as I am aware, FIV can lie dormant and not show up on tests for a little while. So it is possible that she has always been a carrier of FIV and only now is it starting to show any signs of being there. If she has been used as a queen before, then a positive stud cat could have infected her. It is also thought that ingesting another cats saliva can be a factor in spreading the disease, so it is possible that it's come to her that way... who knows. It seems to be to be more likely that she tested a false negative when she came to you. The important thing now is to be certain that this is the correct test result and deal with it accordingly, and I would certainly advise against a litter of kittens from her.

I hope this helps a little - I'm sorry for your bad news hun