When a cat tests positive.........

"Was your cat vaccinated against FIV at any time in his/her life? What many pet owners( and sadly, most shelters ) don't realize is that if a cat is vaccinated against FIV they will test positive for the rest of their lives even though they don't have the disease. Although there is a benefit to the vaccination, there is also a downside because if these cats ever end up in a shelter and test positive for FIV they are automatically euthanized. More info on the site below:

A Cat's Desire - Feline Immunodeficiency Virus Information
...
acatsdesire.com/fiv.html "


There is such a thing as a " false positive" if a cat tests positive for feline leukemia. For more info:

www.belfield.com

Cllick on the underlined section on the first page, wait for the next page to pop up and scroll down. To the right are articles, click on the one on leukemia.

Originally Posted by June

"Was your cat vaccinated against FIV at any time in his/her life? What many pet owners( and sadly, most shelters ) don't realize is that if a cat is vaccinated against FIV they will test positive for the rest of their lives even though they don't have the disease.

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i always thought that was for the FIP vaccine. i didn't even know they had an FIV vaccine now.

It depends where in the world you are. I live in the UK but have only heard of it in America. however, unless they can develop a test to check if the cat has been vaccinated rather than carrying the disease, none of mine will be vaccinated against it, although a suggestion on another cat forum was to put it on their tag, but that carries a risk in case they lose their collar. Hopefully microchipping would stop anything happening to your pet, but while I hear stories of the companies not taking enough steps to locate the owner I wont risk it. Incidentally, I have never heard of an FIP vaccine - when I lost a cat to it, the original vet said to have my other cat tested after a couple of weeks, when I rang to make the appointment, I was told there would be no point as it wouldn't have shown anything.