What is Feline Herpesvirus?

-What is Feline Herpesvirus?

Feline Viral Rhinotracheitis (FVR) is a disease caused by a viral infection, and this disease is highly contagious. This infection mainly affects the upper respiratory tract. Where is the upper respiratory tract? That’s the nose, pharynx and throat.

What kind of virus is so bad? The virus is called Feline Herpesvirus type I, or FHV-I. When someone says, Feline Viral Rhinotracheitis, Herpes Virus Infection, FVR, or FHV, it’s the same thing.

-What Characters it Has?

The biggest characteristic of this disease is that the incidence is quite high in the kittens stage, some veterinary books say that once the kittens carry herpes virus, the incidence is 100%, and the fatality rate is 50%!! So this disease, called kitten killer is not an exaggeration.

Feline Rhinovirus (herpesvirus) prefers to replicate at low temperatures, so hypothermia kittens are more at risk!

The virus has never infected a human before, so there is no need to worry about people getting it from cats.

-How do Cats Get FHV?

The virus can be passed from the nose, eyes and pharynx of a sick cat and spread to other cats through contact or droplets. Droplets, in particular, can be contagious at a distance of 1m in still air.

And, sick cats and natural recovery of the cat or latent infection period of the cat can be toxic or detoxification, become the source of infection! Cats in the early stages of the disease (24 hours after infection) shed the virus in large quantities through secretions that last up to 14 days. Virus-infected cats can be stimulated by stress reactions such as childbirth, estrus, change of environment, etc.

-How to Distinguish Whether the Cat Got a FHV? Symptoms of Cats?

Here are the symptoms of a cat infected with the herpes virus:

1. After the incubation period of 2-3 days, there will generally be a rise in body temperature and fever, which will generally rise to about 40 degrees.

2. The cat coughs and sneezes for more than 48 hours, accompanied by a runny nose. The nose is serous at first, and purulent secretions at the later stage.

3. Tears of the eyes, serous secretions and other eyeball turbidity, conjunctivitis or ulcerative keratitis symptoms.

4. The cat appetite loss, poor spirit.

If your cat is unvaccinated, is in the kitten stage (under 6 months old), or has just come into contact with other cats, the risk of infection is greatly increased! Please go to the hospital for diagnosis at this time!

To keep people from getting ripped off by doctors! Pls note following part:

PCR is the most commonly used test in pet hospitals. Other methods, such as virus isolation and retrovirus testing, are rarely used because they are time-consuming. So, if you go to the hospital, you can ask the doctor whether the PCR test is done.

PCR positive results also does not necessarily represent the present clinical symptom is the cat, which caused by the herpes virus but when using the quantitative real-time PCR to detect virus concentration can provide further information, if present in nasal secretions or tears when high concentrations of virus, said active viral replication, and is associated with clinical symptoms, if the concentration is low, It stands for latent infection.

-Prevention of FHV

Get vaccinated! Vaccinated! Vaccinated!

The most commonly used vaccine is an inactivated feline triple vaccine, which protects against herpes virus, calicivirus and feline panleukopenia (feline plague).

This is because kittens can acquire immunity from their mother for a while and may interfere with the immune response to vaccination if vaccinated too early. So the initial vaccination is generally recommended at about two months of age and then every two weeks until three shots are given, which is considered to confer adequate protection. Continuous vaccination at intervals of 2-4 weeks is recommended for adult or young cats where prior vaccination cannot be confirmed.

If the cat is at high risk of infection in the environment, an annual dose is recommended. If the cat is kept completely indoors and does not leave the house, it can be given once every three years. However, cats that bathe regularly or visit the hospital often should be considered at high risk.

- Treatment of HFV

For the treatment of the nasal branch of the cat, in fact, is the way to eliminate herpes virus, the author looked up a lot of data, but did not reach a high consensus. Here are some of the more accepted approaches I’ve come up with.

1. Replenish body fluids. This can be done with glucose water or drugstore rehydration salts to prevent the cat from being anorexic due to infection with the virus, resulting in dehydration or fatigue.

2. Clean up nasal and eye secretions. For eyes, ribavirin eye drops can be used for treatment.

3, the use of antibiotics, mild symptoms can use amoxicillin clavulanate potassium, serious symptoms, can choose azithromycin. (Antibiotic therapy is used to treat other infections caused by the virus.)

4. Antiviral therapy with famiclovir.

About a lot of people are more familiar with interferon and cat amine (lysine), in fact, these two drugs have not been consistent identity, so we do not blindly ask doctors to use interferon, or their very expensive price to buy the so-called treatment of cat nasal branch cat amine. Because catamine, which is actually the cheap l-lysine, doesn’t fight herpes, it just blocks something called arginine, which is thought to help herpes reproduce.

Finally, I remind you not to buy medicine to treat your cat according to the treatment plan listed in this article. If you have conditions, you should go to the hospital. This is just a popular science article, so that you can have a better understanding of this disease and prevent being cheated by doctors.

- How to Eliminate Herpes Virus?

The herpes virus can be quite aggressive in cats. But his presence outside the cat is weak. If in normal temperature dry conditions, 12 hours can be inactivated, and this virus is the enemy, that is formaldehyde and phenol, so you can use formaldehyde or phenol disinfection.

Due to the diversity of clinical diseases caused by viruses, prognosis varies widely. Most cats make a full recovery from an acute infection, so bronchitis is not an incurable disease and there is a good chance of recovery.