April 7, 2015
Categories: Shelter Medicine

Both feline leukemia and FIV are more common in cats from hoarding situations than in pet or feral cats.

MFFIV_SadieIMG_5594Cats from the stressful, over-crowded conditions of a hoarding situation obviously face serious health challenges. One of those is that they are more likely to have retroviral infections like FIV or feline leukemia (FeLV) than cats living in homes or feral cats.

At the University of Florida's 7th Annual Maddie’s® Shelter Medicine Conference, Dr. Katherine Polak presented the results from a retrospective study characterizing the infectious diseases carried by clinically affected cats from four large-scale cat hoarding investigations.

"The sanctuary managers from all of these four cases assured us that all the cats were tested for retroviruses and were appropriately segregated based on their serological results," she said. "However, retroviral infections were identified in each of the facilities in all areas. So certainly these cats were not appropriately segregated and they were often group housed with uninfected cats."

Because this study was looking at a specific population of cats in over-crowded sanctuary settings, it's hard to know if the cats ended up in those facilities because they were FIV- or FeLV-infected already, and either individual owners or shelters had not felt able to otherwise deal with their health status, or if the stress of the living conditions made retroviral infection more likely.

Either way, Dr. Polak said, "all cats should be retroviral tested at the time of seizure from hoarding cases, as the retroviral status of these cats will influence housing decisions, whether or not you co-house them or individually house them."

Her recommendation is to test the cats again after two months, to identify early infections that might have been previously missed.

If you'd like more information on the triage, intake, care and adoption of cats from hoarding situations, Dr. Polak's presentation is available on our website. It covers how to:

  • Identify infectious disease prevalence rates in cats from hoarding investigations.
  • Prepare for the mass treatment of infectious disease in a temporary shelter.
  • Develop and implement protocols to prevent transmission of feline or zoonotic infections during the emergency response and when transferring rescued cats to other shelters or to adopters.
  • More!

After viewing the presentation, click here to take the quiz and receive a Certificate of Attendance!