Vaccines for FELV and Feline AIDS

Hi I'm a newbie to this site.

Wondered if anyone has experienced something similar.

Monti adopted me about 4 years ago, ( he has been neutered and tested for FELV/AIDS) he receives rabies/cat flu vaccines annually. This year my Vet advised to vaccine against FELV and AIDS as he had seen an increase in the number of cases in the area.

Monti was tested again using the snap test and it showed negative so about a month ago he was vaccined - since then he has had a runny nose and fever it clears up for a few days and then comes back.

Today, he had a complete blood test, which showed low white and red blood cell count, plus the snap test for FELV/AIDS  showed positive. Which seems really odd, does anyone know if this could be the vaccine antibodies which are making a positive result on the snap test?

catbite said:

Hi I'm a newbie to this site.
Wondered if anyone has experienced something similar.

Monti adopted me about 4 years ago, ( he has been neutered and tested for FELV/AIDS) he receives rabies/cat flu vaccines annually. This year my Vet advised to vaccine against FELV and AIDS as he had seen an increase in the number of cases in the area.

Monti was tested again using the snap test and it showed negative so about a month ago he was vaccined - since then he has had a runny nose and fever it clears up for a few days and then comes back.
Today, he had a complete blood test, which showed low white and red blood cell count, plus the snap test for FELV/AIDS  showed positive. Which seems really odd, does anyone know if this could be the vaccine antibodies which are making a positive result on the snap test?

Click to expand...

Hi and welcome to TCS

Why did your vet recommend this vaccine? Is Monti an outside or inside/ouside cat? If not, it is too bad he was vaccinated
In the future, if he doesn't go outside, please know those vaccines are not necessary... They have harsh reactions, and the highest incidence of sarcoma.
Anyways what was he tested positive for? FIV ( which is feline AIDS) or FeLV?
FIV will give false positives after a vaccine, FeLV will not (FeLV tests for the virus, and not for the antibodies)...... HOWEVER - over 50% of the snap tests that are positive for FeLV are false positive so, it is recommended that if the kitty is tested positive for it, you re-run the test 6 weeks later, and do a more comprehensive test, a virus isolation test - not a snap test. That will confirm if the kitty in fact has the disease or not.

Meanwhile, if this kitty is an inside kitty, I highly recommend you looking for another vet, who doesn't push vaccines.... FeLV vaccines specially.

For the cold, you can give your kitty L-Lysine. If it is a kitten, 250mg a day. If an adult cat, 500-1000 mg a day, divided in 2 meals. You can buy the powder on Amazon (look for NOW foods L-Lysine), and mix it to his wet food.

The FIV vaccine will always cause the SNAP test to come back positive, for the rest of the cat's life. The FeLV vaccine doesn't usually do this, though. But being only one month after the vaccine was given, it's possible the antibodies are causing a false positive. I would hope this is something your vet can answer.

Does Monty go outside?

Hi Carolina

Thank you so much for your response I really appreciated it, in answer to your questions, I'll try to  give you the short story version. 

I totally agree with you about the harshness of these vaccines. However, we live in Thailand, Monti decided to move in with us about 4 years ago,  so he was checked out and had no major health problems. I already have 4 indoor cats who don't like and won't mix with him.

Monti likes to be outside during day time and  in the evenings he sleeps in a purpose built cat house until I let him out in the morning.  He does not go far from the house but, like all males is very territorial and there are a quite few cats living around us so fighting has becoming an issue, (he is a slow healer so any wounds mainly scratches take so long to heal).  Hence the  vaccines. 

He was snap tested at the end of November  for FELV /FIV which both showed negative, so we went with the vaccine, within a couple of days runny nose and fever, antiinflammatory/antibiotics have been administered, he  finishes the course and within  3 days  it kicks back in. 

Today our Vet did the complete bloods then the snap test which showed positive on both FELV and FIV. We knew that FIV could give false positive, but, we were shocked to see that both showed positive. The vaccines are Pfizer and our Vet has had no problem with these, he has contacted the Company and ask that the Lab Staff  contact him urgently so we are waiting to hear.

Hi Willowy

Thank you for your reply, Monti does go out during the day time he doesn't like to stay in plus I have 4 indoor cats who don't like him, in the evenings he sleeps in a purpose built cat house.

This morning I was very upset to see both FELV and FIV showing positive, my Vet is waiting for a call back from Pfizer Lab Staff on the FELV, but I have been thinking the same as you that the vaccine is still in his system so this could have provided a false reading.

Once again thank you for your response.    

Yes after you give the vaccine, the tests will show positive because they test for the antibodies which the vaccine is designed to create. The tests are not all that sophisticated, and there is some debate about giving cats a vaccine which puts them at risk later in life if they are not with the same owner and then somebody thinks they have FIV or FeLV. 

Reference item 10 on this link: http://www.fivtherapy.com/bdsfiv.htm#Can FIV infection be prevented?

Barb, the FeLV test is for the virus, not the antibodies, which is why is not affected by the vaccines like FIV.

Yes Carolina the link I provided addresses that

Hi BarbB

Thanks for this. Yesterday I was very upset as I have 4 indoor cats as well as Monti, although they don't mix they use the same cat house (indoors during day, Monti at night) so I was worried about them using the same bedding etc.  

I feel much better after reading the responses from everyone, my Vet is coming to my house today so I'll post an update ASAP.

Here is another good link that focuses on felv exclusively http://www.askthecatdoctor.com/felineleukemia.html