FIP and this household

A bit of background history for those of you who are new to this blog.

Last year, I fostered a group of kittens. One, Kodi, I fell in love with.. I had already said I was not going to adopt any more after Jack.. so in order to not adopt him, I said that I couldn't keep Kodi with out keeping Muffin and Eli. Well, thanks to my husband, we ended up keeping them all. Unfortunately, Kodi became very ill. The doctors decided that he had FIP, and in the end, we did what was best for Kodi and we euthanized him. It was a very hard day. Compounded by the doctors who suggested we bring in the rest of the gang for testing. I was told they all showed positive for "FIP". I was told that just because they had it, didn't mean they were going to come down with it. We retested in six weeks, and every ones titres went up. The doctors told me that it was an active infection, and to keep an eye on them.

Well to this day not one of them (okay, well Eli, but he's a different story) has gotten sick at all, and I recently had three of them retested, two have "negative" titres, and one has been reduced four fold to a barely positive status.

Again, for those dear readers who aren't privy to my rantings about the "FIP test", Just so you know, I NOW know them to be unreliable and doing them is irresponsible. The test simply checks for the presence of the corona virus. FIP is a mutated form of it.

In my research, I have come across a number of conflicting pieces of information about FIP. The doctors at the clinic told me that it is airborne. Articles on the web say it is not. The doctors at the clinic say it is transmittable.. articles on the web say it is not. I tend to take information found on the web with a grain of salt, because I usually can't verify the authors. Unless I get it from a known source, I never feel completely comfortable with it.

Well the other day I got my new issue of Cat Fancy (July 2004) and in it, is a very informative article on FIP. Unfortunately it didn't cover one of my most burning questions. Is it airborne? Dr. Plotnick DMV wrote it, and I found his email address on the web. I wrote him to ask. He replied that it is not airborne, and it can not be transmitted by people who come in contact with a cat that has it.

Didn't I break down and cry! It is so good to have official confirmation that the kittens that have come through my household were not exposed, and that the two known cases of it did not get it here.