Distemper question

I recently fostered a mom cat and 4 kittens from my local SPCA. After a week one of the kittens seemed ill. I called them and told them. They rushed here to get them. Today I found out the one little kitten had distemper. The SPCA put the Mom and all the kittens to sleep 'due to the contagious nature" of the disease. Is there no cure for distemper? Can they not have treated them at all? was it necessary to put ALL of them down?? I am so upset at this. The kittens were 5 weeks old. The Mom and the other three seemed perfectly healthy. I am at a loss here to try and understand this. Any insight into why all of them were put to sleep would be greatly appreciated. I was also told that now that my kitten room is contaminated I cannot foster for a year. Anybody have links for distemper information? Thanks in advance for any and all help here.

Welcome to TCS!
First of all, I'm so sorry the mom cat and all her kittens had to be put down. Here's a link to one of the previous threads in the Health and Nutrition forum regarding distemper. http://www.thecatsite.com/forums/sho...er+information Also, the forth post in this thread contains five additional links to threads regarding distemper. I hope these threads will help answer some of your questions.

I don't have any first-hand knowledge of distemper that would help you.