Immunoprophylaxis plays a pivotal role within the frame of contemporary preventive medicine, enabling the practicing veterinarian to control the most common infectious diseases that may pose a threat on the health status or life itself in the dog and cat. Passive immunization is the administration of preformed antibodies in animals of the same or different species. An alternative to maternal immunity, the natural way of passive immunity, is the use of hyperimmune serum or plasma in colostrum-deprived neonates, in unvaccinated puppies and kittens that belong to high risk groups and in immunocompromised animals. In small animal practice the main vaccine types currently in use for vaccination, an active immunization procedure, include the modified live vaccines, the inactivated and the subunit vaccines. The sound knowledge of these vaccines special features and the potential causes of vaccination failures are essential if a successful vaccination schedule is to be implemented. Vaccinations can start at the 6th week of life in colostrum-afforded neonates while in colostrum-deprived puppies at the 4th week with the use of inactivated vaccines. In the dog, infectious diseases such as distemper, infectious hepatitis, leptospirosis (L. canicola, L. icterohaemorrhagiae), rabies, infectious tracheobronchitis, parvovirus infection, Coronavirus enteritis and babesiosis can be prevented by the use of vaccines which are currently available.

The widespread use of vaccinations among the feline population has greatly contributed to the control of the most common infectious diseases, such as panleukopenia, upper respiratory viral diseases, leukemia virus infection, rabies, infectious peritonitis, chlamydiosis and Bordetella infection that threaten the health status or the life itself of the affected cats. Kittens having received colostrum can be vaccinated as soon as the 6th week of life, while the colostrum-deprived neonates two weeks earlier, provided that inactivated vaccines will be used. The induction of immunization and maintenance at protective levels through annual boostering are the main goals of all vaccination programmes applied to the cat. The unusual postvaccinal complications may include the 4 hypersensitivity types of reaction and the immunosupression reportedly related to some vaccine products (immunologic), the local reactions at the injection site, some reproductive problems, the appearance of the disease itself and the sarcomas (non-immunologic).

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In order to study the hematological abnormalities in feline steatitis 10 Domestic shorthair (DSH) and 10 Siamese 2 to 3 month-old kittens were used to whom cooked sardines supplemented with minerals and vitamins, except vitamin E, were given for 4 consecutive months (experimental groups). An equal number of age and sex matched kittens for each breed that were being fed a commercial canned cat food based on oily fish and for the same period of time served as controls. Blood samples were taken at 0 time and at 15-day intervals thereafter for a CBC. Red and white blood cell morphology was also studied. Steatitis was reproduced in all the 20 kittens of the experimental groups. Five DSH kittens developed the clinical and 5 the subclinical form of the disease. The relevant figures for the affected Siamese kittens were 6 and 4, respectively. The clinical disease was significantly more severe in the DSH breed only at the very beginning of the experimental period (time 1). None of the controls belonging to both breeds developed clinical signs or lesions associated with steatitis. Low PCV(<25%) and decreased Hb concentration (<8 g/100ml) indicating anemia, and appearing as early as time 1, in the experimental groups were significantly more severe in the Siamese than in the DSH breed. Evidently the anemia was non-regenerative attributable to chronic inflammatory nature of steatitis. In most of the observation times significant neutrophilic leucocytosis was detected only in the experimental groups; a regenerative left shift was seen in approximatery 50% of all the cases with neutrophilia. Eosinophilia and monocytosis were of minor significance for both breeds. No erythrocyte and leucocyte morphological abnormalities were seen in the DSH or the Siamese experimental groups all over the experimental period.