Study of an attenuated strain of feline infectious enteritis (panleucopaenia) virus. I. Spread of vaccine virus from cats affected with feline respiratory disease.

In the course of developing a living attenuated feline infectious enteritis (panleucopaenia) vaccine, it was found that respiratory disease-infected cats newly inoculated with this vaccine spread vaccine virus to respiratory disease-infected in-contact controls. These in-contact controls were able to infect other cats with which they were placed in contact so that after five natural transmissions in this way and two oral administrations and subsequent re-isolations, reversion to virulence became evident. It is clear that before general release of a new living feline infectious enteritis vaccine, there must be satisfactory evidence that concurrent infection will not affect the safety of the modified antigen.In cats infected with feline infectious enteritis there appears to be a short period, coinciding with the onset of leucopaenia, during which they are highly infectious. It seems possible that some infected animals may become immune carriers because virus has been recovered from the small intestine of two of four cats with significant antibody titres 22-24 days after exposure to infection.