If you have cats, you probably familiar with Feline Leukemia. It is also known as Feline Leukemia Virus Infection which is transferred from one cat to another. Feline Leukemia Virus (FeLV) is a kind of lethal disease which relates to leukemia or a series tumors. If the cat gets the feline leukemia infection, the symptoms will show up in the cells, blood, saliva and tears. The disease can be found in 1-6 year old male cats and four month old younger kittens.
The first thing you have to know is that human beings won’t get infected by feline leukemia. So, you have no worries about getting the disease from your cats. Another important thing is that even though your cats get feline leukemia, they still have a chance to get healthy again. Please remember that from the moment you took them home, they are not only your pets, but also part of your family. So, don’t abandon your cats just because they are sick and you are too afraid to take care of them. If they receive quality treatment and are taken care of well, they still have a good chance to be healthy again and live a long life.
What causes Feline Leukemia?
The most common routes of infection is vertical infection, from mother cats to their babies. The other one is horizontal infection such as via saliva or blood. To prevent the infection is getting leukemia vaccine.
Here are 3 different types of situations if the cat gets feline leukemia:
1. This one is the luckiest one which is that the cat has feline leukemia immune system. In this case, the cat won’t have any symptom of leukemia.
2. If the cat doesn’t have the immune system of feline leukemia, it will appear very obvious clinical symptoms, and it’ll continuously have the highly contagious outbreak through saliva and blood pass along to other cats. Those syndrome are like fever, weight loss, oral inflammation or canker, dehydrated, thin hair, dispirited, swollen lymph nodes, diarrhea, leukocyte decreasing, and having anemia.
3. The virus gets killed in the plasma or blood serum, but lays dormant in the bone marrow or lymph systems. In this case, the cat won’t have any outbreak symptom or causes any threat to other cats, but it will become a carrier.
Cat Immune Systems and Feline Leukmeia
Cats are just like humans. If your cats have leukemia or AIDS, the very first thing that you should be aware of is their immune system. The Feline leukemia virus can destroy their immune system. You can imagine that their bodies will weak like a spaceship without the shield protection. In this situation, they can’t fight against other diseases like normal healthy cats. In fact, many cats suffer from leukemia are not get killed because of it, but from other maladies such as Feline Infectious Peritonitis (FIP), the upper respiratory tract virus infection, Toxoplasmosis or other bacteria.
The troublesome part is that feline leukemia cannot be completely cured by chemotherapy. The curative effect depend on the sick cat has well reaction of its immune system or not. The reason why that chemotherapy is a tough procedure is that it can only make their tumors fadeaway but cannot 100% remove.
● Indoor Cats Have The Least Chance To Get Feline Leukemia
Regardless of different ages and breeds, all of cats can get feline leukemia. However, according to the research, outdoor cats have higher chances to get leukemia than indoor cats.
The main reason is that outdoor cats have much more chances to get in touch with other outdoor cats or stray cats. And those outdoor cats may have the situations below:
– They like to fight against each other.
– They don’t get leukemia vaccine before.
– They come from the family who have a lot of cats.
– They are stray cats that are untraceable.