The good news is that I don't have a positive test result to talk about. The bad news is that, in the course of a rescue of a hoarding situation (main thread in SOS, including pictures!), while a vet has agreed to provide an enormous amount of at-cost care, she reasonably does not want any cats who test positive for FIV or FeLV to stay on the property. We're going to fix all of the animals and have supervision, so, hopefully, no new cats will enter the situation, but to expect the hoarder to keep infected animals isolated, inside and well cared for is simply unrealistic, no matter the amount of supervision. Therefore, unless we can find homes ahead of time, any cats who test positive for either disease will be euthanized.
Neither my spouse nor I know much about these diseases: so far I've found good information pages on the for basic conventional veterinary wisdom written in a readable manner by the Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine with good descriptions of those diseases: FIV and FeLV.
What we want to know is the general long-term prognosis for cats with either of these diseases, and what type of shelter, fostering, and adoption possibilities they have. My spouse will be on the property for maybe two more weeks, so we've got a time crunch situation, but he's both willing to drive very long distances and we could try to get things like the animal rescue transport network involved, so we're willing to look very far and wide for places to put these cat. Charles is willing to drive cats to anywhere in the US Southeast (esp. Georgia, where he is, Florida, Alabama, and North and South Carolina), and, if we can get other transport arranged, we're willing to send the cats anywhere in the US (I'm guessing crossing country boarders with cats infected with communicable diseases is a No-No).
Also, it looks like the in-vet office FeLV ELISA test has a serious possibility for false positives; anyone know any sources for what the rate of false positives is? I certainly wouldn't want to euthanize a healthy cat because of a false positive test!
Anyone know what the in-vet office FIV test is? What kind of false positive rate does it give? I've read that an FIV vaccine will give a false positive on this test: is there an FIV test that will not return a false positive for vaccinated cats? Some of these cats have been to another vet, and I will have my spouse check the records very carefully (and call the vet besides) to make sure that they weren't vaccinated for FIV before we test them.
The kittens are going in to the vet on Monday, so swift answers would be greatly appreciated.
Neither my spouse nor I know much about these diseases: so far I've found good information pages on the for basic conventional veterinary wisdom written in a readable manner by the Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine with good descriptions of those diseases: FIV and FeLV.
What we want to know is the general long-term prognosis for cats with either of these diseases, and what type of shelter, fostering, and adoption possibilities they have. My spouse will be on the property for maybe two more weeks, so we've got a time crunch situation, but he's both willing to drive very long distances and we could try to get things like the animal rescue transport network involved, so we're willing to look very far and wide for places to put these cat. Charles is willing to drive cats to anywhere in the US Southeast (esp. Georgia, where he is, Florida, Alabama, and North and South Carolina), and, if we can get other transport arranged, we're willing to send the cats anywhere in the US (I'm guessing crossing country boarders with cats infected with communicable diseases is a No-No).
Also, it looks like the in-vet office FeLV ELISA test has a serious possibility for false positives; anyone know any sources for what the rate of false positives is? I certainly wouldn't want to euthanize a healthy cat because of a false positive test!
Anyone know what the in-vet office FIV test is? What kind of false positive rate does it give? I've read that an FIV vaccine will give a false positive on this test: is there an FIV test that will not return a false positive for vaccinated cats? Some of these cats have been to another vet, and I will have my spouse check the records very carefully (and call the vet besides) to make sure that they weren't vaccinated for FIV before we test them.
The kittens are going in to the vet on Monday, so swift answers would be greatly appreciated.