Vaccination of Immunocompromised Cats.

Immunocompromise is a common condition in cats, especially due to widespread infections with immunosuppressive viruses, such as feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV) and feline leukaemia virus (FeLV), but also due to chronic non-infectious diseases, such as tumours, diabetes mellitus, and chronic kidney disease, as well as treatment with immunosuppressive drugs, such as glucocorticoids, cyclosporins, or tumour chemotherapy. In this review, the European Advisory Board on Cat Diseases (ABCD), a scientifically independent board of experts in feline medicine from eleven European countries, discusses the current knowledge and rationale for vaccination of immunocompromised cats. So far, there are few data available on vaccination of immunocompromised cats, and sometimes studies produce controversial results. Thus, this guideline summarizes the available scientific studies and fills in the gaps with expert opinion, where scientific studies are missing. Ultimately, this review aims to help veterinarians with their decision-making in how best to vaccinate immunocompromised cats.

Anthropogenic Infection of Cats during the 2020 COVID-19 Pandemic.

COVID-19 is a severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) caused by a new coronavirus (CoV), SARS-CoV-2, which is closely related to SARS-CoV that jumped the animal-human species barrier and caused a disease outbreak in 2003. SARS-CoV-2 is a betacoronavirus that was first described in 2019, unrelated to the commonly occurring feline coronavirus (FCoV) that is an alphacoronavirus associated with feline infectious peritonitis (FIP). SARS-CoV-2 is highly contagious and has spread globally within a few months, resulting in the current pandemic. Felids have been shown to be susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 infection. Particularly in the Western world, many people live in very close contact with their pet cats, and natural infections of cats in COVID-19-positive households have been described in several countries. In this review, the European Advisory Board on Cat Diseases (ABCD), a scientifically independent board of experts in feline medicine from 11 European Countries, discusses the current status of SARS-CoV infections in cats. The review examines the host range of SARS-CoV-2 and human-to-animal transmissions, including infections in domestic and non-domestic felids, as well as mink-to-human/-cat transmission. It summarises current data on SARS-CoV-2 prevalence in domestic cats and the results of experimental infections of cats and provides expert opinions on the clinical relevance and prevention of SARS-CoV-2 infection in cats.