to issue a plea to vets<\/a> amid growing FPV case numbers in the late summer to early autumn period.<\/p>\nEveryday conversations<\/p>\n
Dr Merrett said: \u201cIt\u2019s a disease that really highlights those conversations that, as vets, we have every day with owners around preventive health care, such as vaccination, such as neutering. It highlights how those decisions for an individual cat can also have population-level impacts.\u201d<\/p>\n
The RCVS advanced practitioner in feline medicine said while there are evidence gaps around FPV numbers, Cats Protection believes there is a \u201cpopulation dynamic\u201d, with a large population of susceptible cats driving an increase in cases.<\/p>\n
Citing the charity\u2019s latest Cats and their Stats report, she noted while vet registrations sit at 93%, only 79% of owners reported their cats as up to date with vaccinations and around 5% reported their cats are not vaccinated at all.<\/p>\n
\u2018Discuss worth\u2019<\/p>\n
Dr Merrett said: \u201cIn some areas, that is going to be even higher where there\u2019s more barriers to accessing vet care, so just those conversations around vaccinations are really important.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s worth considering taking advantage of seeing a cat potentially for a different reason that hasn\u2019t been vaccinated to discuss the worth of vaccination.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dr Merrett also noted neutering has declined from 88% in 2020 to 79% in 2026, with owners primarily citing wanting their cat to have kittens or their cat being indoor only.<\/p>\n
She said: \u201cThat\u2019s a really useful fact for us to know as vets, as vet nurses, as veterinary receptionists, the whole practice team, to be able to come in and actually talk about some of that responsibility that comes with making that decision and some of the unintended consequences, as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
She argued vets\u2019 recommendations are \u201cstrong motivators\u201d for clients and encouraging neutering at four months rather than six will \u201chave a bigger effect and a bigger impact on the growth rate\u201d of susceptible populations.<\/p>\n
\u2018Key message\u2019<\/p>\n
Dr Merrett concluded: \u201cThe value of those preventive health care actions for the individual on the population, I think, it\u2019s a really key message for us of making every opportunity for preventive health care to count as much as possible.<\/p>\n
\u201cCommunication among the profession is important as well because it does tend to be that you don\u2019t see a case in isolation very often.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dr Alderton-Sell also urged clinicians to be vigilant \u2013 particularly with kittens.<\/p>\n
She said: \u201cConsider [FPV] in the face of sudden death. Don\u2019t be looking for haemorrhagic diarrhoea as a symptom of FPV.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a practice, have a standardised approach to how you recognise the disease, how you\u2019re planning on confirming it, those measures of biosecurity that we all feel so passionately about, and have the opportunity to review your vaccination guidance.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Vets Sarah Merrett and Lucinda Alderton-Sell discussed their Vet Times clinical review of FPV and what clinicians can…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":636548,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[134,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-636547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-health","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=636547"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636547\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/636548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=636547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=636547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=636547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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