Understanding the FIP & FIV Viruses in Kittens

"Hi! I’m Dr. Adrienne Mulligan and I am the owner of Camp Verde Veterinary Clinic and I am here on behalf of Expert Village.com to talk to you today about caring for kittens. Two more infectious viruses that kittens can be born with are acquired early in their life are called FIV and FIP; that stands for Feline Immunodeficiency Virus and it is very much like HIV in people and the other is Feline Infectious Peritonitis and that causes them to get a big belly full of fluid. Kittens that start showing those signs and have that early on again don’t live very long lives. Those kittens will go badly downhill over the first few weeks but on the other hand, some kittens can have it and do fine all of their life and not sick until they are much older. The feline immunodeficiency virus which is more like Aids, that actually can do well with and do fine just like people with Aids and they might not get sick unless they are exposed to something later that makes them sicker like having to go under anesthesia and have dental work done, things like that could cause them not to be able to deal with that and they might pass away from that. So those are the three biggies that we worry about. We can test for them. The easiest two to test for are the leukemia and the FIV."