Feline Leukemia need help Please!!!?

Question

I just picked up two kittens less then two weeks ago. One from a breeder (9 weeks old) and the other from a neighbour (12 weeks old). Both kittens were keep in completely different rooms and were no where near each other. I took the kitten from my neighbour to the veterinarian on Aug 13 to get his shots/testing. His blood work came back negative for feline leukemia and all other viruses. Knowing that both kittens were safe I let them meet each other the next day. Today I took the kitten from the breeder to the veterinarian for a checkup and was tested for feline leukemia and it came back postive. My questions is could the kitten from my neighbour had a false negative test and given it to the other kitten within a 6 day time frame.

Answer 1

It's not likely to have a false negative, but a false positive is always a possibility.  Was the kitten from the "breeder" tested prior to your getting him, and were the parents certified to be negative?  I'd ask the vet to do more extensive testing on the positive kitten (I believe you want to ask for an IFA test) and see what that turns out to be.  If that one is positive, then the kitten is in fact positive for FeLV, and very likely will have infected the other one as well.



I ask this question about the "breeder" as reputable breeders don't let kittens go home until they are 12 weeks old - it sounds like your neighbor is more responsible than this breeder person, so I'd be a bit concerned here.  

Answer 2

It is totally possible that kitten could have gotten it. Since they weren't able to be in contact with each other most of the time, the chances are a little better. It is usually spread through contact, like grooming, bite wounds, saliva, sharing dishes, and sometimes even sharing litter boxes. Give that other kitten back to the breeder. I would even go as far as to report that breeder. If she were a respectable breeder, she has absolutely NO excuse for FELV to be present in her home or breeding colonies! Here is a website for everything you need to know about Feline Leukemia. It's a vetereinary website. http://www.vet.cornell.edu/fhc/brochures...

I don't know if it's possible for the mother's antibodies to show up in the kitten's test. I think that would only happen if the mother was vaccinated for FELV and even so, I have never heard of that before at my work. If that were the case, I think we would have a lot more FELV positive kittens at my work. Usually when a cat tests positive, it tests positive. We always send them out to the lab for confirmation, but I can't think of an instance where our snap tests were inaccurate.

Answer 3

Usually there's false positives, not false negatives (I had that with one of my cats).  Have them redo the test. It was the 15 minute Elisha blood test, right?  Usually those are pretty accurate, they're wrong more often about the FIV results than with the fe-luke results.  It woudn't hurt to have the cat retested.

There are at least two very good feline leukemia bulletin boards on yahoogroups, you can join them and talk directly with owners of fe-luke cats, they'll let you know how contagious it is or is not (it's not necessarily going to pass to every cat who's exposed) and what tests they recommend.

Answer 4

no.vet tests are normally accurate.the cat what you got from the breeder may already of had it and it may have caught it off its mother

Answer 5

could it have happened.. yes.

however I doubt the kitten would have tested + for felv after a 6 day exposure, since it takes some time to incubate.  chances are more likely that the kitten has felv antibodies from the mom, and that is why it is testing positive.  Ask if the snap test was done or the ELISa was done.  If it was just the snap, ask for the ELISa which is much more accurate.