RE: Cats and chronic rhinitis - vaccinate?

Martin Atkinson — Wed, 13 Dec 2017 11:38:41 GMT

Given the percentage of cats which present with chronic URTI symptoms, if we worried vaccination was contraindicated if they were flu carriers we wouldn't vaccinate half our cats albeit clearly its not wise to vaccinate while they are unwell.

I would treat symptomatically and with antibiotics for the secondary bacterial infections and do your viral tests (PCR is better than ab for the respiratory viruses/chlamydia as that will likely be +ve anyway). I would be concerned with FeLV, if not FIV, but they're not likely to be FHV, FCV and Chlamydia carriers* all at the same time so there is still mileage in giving booster vaccines for those diseases they're not carrying.

If they are FHV or FCV, or even FelV +ve you may improve them temporarily with some interferon therapy - this may have an immune moderating effect as well as antiviral although it is not curative in carrier state (there is a protocol for Virbagen Omega for this) and Chlamydia will respond to 3-4 weeks of doxycycline (*Chlamydia is not a true carrier status but chronic infection however all contacts must be treated contiguously).

I'm not sure I would be happy giving steroids to chronic cat flu cases other than FCR induced lymphocytic/plasmocytic gingivo-stomatitis.

RE: Cats and chronic rhinitis - vaccinate?

Delia Richter — Wed, 13 Dec 2017 11:27:18 GMT

Oh and I remember using Azithromycim long term used to be a thing - does anyone do this now?