Animal Welfare Professionals

Q: Is vaccination the only way for moms to generate antibodies?  can they develop anitbodies through exposure to the virus without contracting it? 

A: Exposure without infection will not generate antibodies, however if they are infected with parvo, distemper or panleukopenia and survive, they will generate long lasting antibodies that can be passed to their offspring. This is why we sometimes see stray animals with antibodies to one or another of these viruses even if they have never been vaccinated.  

Q: Can a pregnant cat be given a vaccine at any point during her pregnancy? 

A: Yes...as you will hear, there are some theoretical risks of vaccinating pregnant cats but in almost all shelter situations or any other situation where a cat has any outdoor exposure, the benefit of protecting cats from fatal panleukopenia infection will outweigh that risk. Vaccinating pregnant cats in shelters is virtually always indicated. 

Q: Is it okay to vaccinate with kittens that have confirmed case of FIP? 

A: In general, the benefit of protecting kittens against panleukopenia outweighs any risk caused by the vaccine, unless you are very confident that you can prevent exposure to panleukopenia until treatment has been completed. Because panleuk is so environmentally persistent, that can be a tall order. 

Q: Is any protection granted from the mother if she is vaccinated near or after birth?   

A: No, she has to already have the antibodies...vaccinating very early in pregnancy can help her generate antibodies to share with kittens but not near or after birth. But it helps mom! 

Q: Is there a specialized vaccination for the tiny neonate kittens? More specifically, do we use standard dose - same dose as we would use on an adult cat? 

A: Hopefully we covered that - no specialized vaccine needed, give full dose 

Q: Are you recommending the single antigen Parvo vaccine, or is it ok to use our standard DA2PP vaccine? 

A: Recommending the standard DA2PP. 

Q: How early is "early"? Day 1? 

A: As early as birth if they are in an environment where meaningful risk is present 

Q: I had a mom cat vaccinated in the shelter while pregnant.  She gave birth to 4 kittens.  One out of four has CH.  If mom was exposed to FPV in the field would only 1 have CH or should all of them?  They were all vaccinated at 4 weeks old.  I always assumed it was do to mom getting vaccinated while pregnant. 

A: As in that one case report described in the webinar, we can't know whether the CH was due to mom being vaccinated, or having been exposed to panleukopenia during pregnancy prior to vaccine protection kicking in. We do know that when moms are infected during pregnancy, the outcome in kittens can be different.  In cats known NOT to have been vaccinated during pregnancy but apparently infected by field strain panleuk, it's not unusual to see a litter where one or two kittens are affected and others aren't. 

Q: If we start vaccinating at birth and are then able to get litters out into foster, what schedule would we follow thereafter? I assume still booster every 2weeks?  

A: If the risk of exposure once they're in foster care is low (it often is), then it makes sense to bring them in less frequently for revaccination - every 4 weeks is fine (bringing them in to the shelter may be their highest risk!). The exception would be a high volume foster home with more than one litter coming and going, that would be more like the risk while they are in a shelter. 

Q: Full dose!!?? Oh my gosh. Really? 

A: For real! Your team will get used to it :-) 

Q: I would like to hear about the likelihood (if any) of vaccine interference on an IDEXX SNAP parvo test for kittens who are symptomatic after a modified live FVRCP vaccination. 

A: Same as when we are vaccinating kittens at the traditional age, it is a possible for recent vaccination to cause a positive test result, however with the idexx test in particular this is rare (In this article, only 1 out of 64 kittens had positive test results on the idexx test, but 13 had positive results on another brand of test). So you can put a fair amount of faith in a combination of clinical signs of panleuk combined with a positive Idexx snap test in a recently vaccinated kitten, and should definitely handle that kitten as if he or she is shedding and infectious. Additional testing such as a CBC or smear to look for leukopenia can help if you're unsure. 

Q: Intranasel FVRCP vs SQ FVRCP for kittens less than 4 weeks? 

A: SQ FVRCP – while the intranasal may have some benefit in protecting against respiratory infection, our big concern in this age group is panleukopenia and the SQ vaccine is far superior for that purpose. 

Q: Are there any studies that actually show neonates' (puppies and kittens) immune response to vaccines? Or are there studies to this effect in the works? Also, is there any feedback from ASV and AAFP? Any expectation of endorsement from these organizations? 

A: Read more about the studies behind this recommendation here (lots of detail in the appendix!): https://sheltermedicine.wisc.edu/neonatal-vaccination-recommendations/ 

Q: Would neonatal vax reaction be the current list of vax reaction? Or is there new signs to watch for in reaction to neonate vax? 

A: No different signs to watch for, just the normal 

Q: Can you please address the concern about CKD risk in hyperinnoculated cats? Research by Lappin and a few others has demonstrated that q2 week "hyperinnoculation" of kittens against RCP causes kidney-autoantibody production. Obviously the longterm influence is hard to track but there are several studies suggesting that heavily vaccinated cats are more likely to develop CKD later in life. In my region the majority of the owned cat population comes from shelter-owned/foster-cared kittens vaccinated q2 weeks. While I see the need for q2 week vaccination in the shelter housed kittens I am concerned that giving RCP q2 weeks instead of q3-4 weeks to more moderate risk foster kittens could increase the overall CKD concerns in our mature cats across the larger population. (Note that this is a cat concern, not dog concern.) 

A: As soon as the kittens are in a clean foster home or other environment where risk of exposure is minimal, it's indicated to go to a 4-week interval. Hopefully very few kittens are spending the entire time from birth to adoption in a shelter or other high-risk environment, for many reasons. 

Q: What about the side of overvaccinating animals then if we are started as early as birth in shelters? 

A: See above. 

Q: Did I miss vax location on kitten neonate? Those legs are pretty tiny. 

A: Subcutaneous, between the shoulder blades is fine if that's where you can get the vaccine in.  

Q: But: if they will not have any other option but to remain in the shelter, do you give the neonatal, 2weeks boosters then spread out the time between after 3 or 4 vaccines?  We will have puppies that potentially will remain in the shelter beyond 20 weeks. 

A: Beyond 20 weeks they do not need to be revaccinated. 

Q: vaccinate if they have a bad uri or sickly not parvo related? 

A: Yes 

Q: Does early vaccination also lower infection rates of FVR and Calcivirus? 

A: Potentially yes although this is not the main reason for neonatal vaccination.