To test or not to test!
Many shelters are moving away from routinely testing for Feline Leukemia Virus (FIV) and
Feline Immunodeficiency Virus (FIV). There are many factors that are influencing this decision, such as…
- No test is perfect, and when you combine this with the fact that the rate of this disease is less than 3% nationwide, the chance of a false positive result increases when testing all healthy cats. If you test say 1000 cats and 30 of the cats test positive, only 17 of these cats will actually have FeLV, meaning that over 56% of positive results are actually false positives. Even if you get a negative test result, that only means that they are negative at the time they were tested. It takes at least 30 days from the time of infection with FeLV to test positive on a SNAP test and at least 60 days for a cat infected with FIV to test positive on a SNAP test. FeLV is a very complex disease. Cats that test negative in house can still be infected and only show signs later. Cats can also test transiently positive and later test negative.
- Testing every cat in a shelter can easily run into the tens of thousands of dollars for the test kit alone, not to mention the cost of syringes, alcohol, time for testing, etc. The drawing of the blood, running the tests, interpreting the results and putting the results into the animal’s records are time consuming and can only be performed by a limited number of trained medical staff. This can create a bottleneck where cats wait for testing, leading to increased length of stay and increased health risks for all cats.
- If we decide to put FIV or FeLV positive cats up for adoption, it may take longer to find adopters for positive cats, increasing their length of stay and risking others by crowding shelters, increasing stress and likelihood of disease. If we decide to euthanize cats that test positive, we risk euthanizing cats that weren’t truly positive or a healthy cat that just happens to be FIV or FeLV positive but not symptomatic. Euthanizing positive cats also has a negative impact on shelter staff.
When does the Brant County SPCA test for FIV/FeLV
The Brant County SPCA tests on the recommendation of a veterinarian. This is usually because of other factors such as a
wound/abscess that is slow to heal, dental disease, lethargy, etc.