Replies

FIPV (Feline Infectious Peritonitis) symptoms are fever, anemia, weight loss, ocular disease, diarrhea, respiratory distress and neurological disease. The virus is disseminated by using the immune system and is a more fulminant disease in higher antibody response patients. The virus remains infective over 48 hours in the environment. FIPV is highly mutatable. Organ involvement is complete in some cases. Fluid builds up in body cavities, both thoracic and abdomen. The disease is highly contagious.

Just about everything stated about the SARS virus is compatible with FIPV. FIPV is highly variable in the course of the disease. There are carriers, some live months after infection and some just weeks at best. The FIPV may infect just the respiratory system or the peritoneal cavity. There are effusive and non-effusive forms. Lungs in an effusive form may fill up with fibrin rich serum which ultimately kills the patient.

This is just a quick overview of the virus. The more we learn about SARS, the scarier it gets.

Isn't one difference that, whereas most cats are infected with the FIP virus, very few develop the full-blown disease? I wonder what it is that determines which cats come down with it and which do not. That might turn out to have some application to SARS.

Fluid builds up in body cavities, both thoracic and abdomen.

It seems like bed-rest would be bad then ---I'll follow my grandfather's advice ---when he had a bad pneumonia in his 70's he insisted on going to work and sleeping sitting upright in his chair at night. He said laying down was the worst thing to do because the fluids don't drain and your lungs fill up and you die ---working and getting out moving around also help you clear the fluid build up. He didn't miss a day of work and he quickly recovered.