Prevalence of feline leukaemia virus and feline immunodeficiency virus in domestic cats in Ireland

Abstract

Feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV) and feline leukaemia virus (FeLV) are retroviruses affecting felid species worldwide. A study was performed over a period of 5 months in Ireland with the aim to get an updated and more realistic prevalence of these retroviruses. A total of 183 EDTA-anticoagulated whole-blood samples were collected from cats distributed between 10 clinics. The samples were tested using both point-of-care enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Basic clinical data and vaccination history were also recorded for the sampled cats. The results of ELISA tests showed a prevalence of 10.4 and 3.3% for FIV and FeLV, respectively, and an apparent prevalence of 9.3% for FIV and 11.6% for FeLV with PCR. Phylogenetic analysis of the partial polymerase (pol) gene sequences obtained from 8 FIV-positive strains showed that all but one of the Irish strains belonged to FIV subtype A, and one to subtype B. The overall mean genetic similarity between the analysed strains was 91.15%.

Prevalence of feline coronavirus, feline leukemia virus, and feline immunodeficiency virus in client-owned cats in Croatia

“…5), similar to results of studies of owned cats in Germany [18], in Turkey [29], in Poland [30], in Mexico [42], in Hungary [8], and in Italy [52]. However, some other studies in Israel [5], Australia [12], in New Zealand [47], in Cyprus [46], in Brazil [55], and in Ireland [17] reported contrasting results.…”

“…This finding supports observations from a previous Croatian study [21], but not the most recent data from European countries (with the exclusion of prevalence data including stray or shelter cats). FeLV prevalence was higher than observations of studies from Germany [18], Poland [30], Austria [44], Switzerland [48], Italy [52], and Ireland [17].…”

“…1) was similar to the results of studies from Italy [52,41], Austria [44], Poland [30], Cyprus [46], Israel [5], Brazil [51], and Mexico [42] (Table 2). In the current study, the FeLV prevalence was higher than observed in Ireland [17], Germany [18], Serbia [19], Switzerland [48], USA and Canada [16], Japan [31], Thailand [49], Australia [12], and New Zealand [47], but lower than in Hungary [8], Turkey [1,29], Malaysia [50,9], Iran [43], and China [45] (Table 2).…”

“…This variability in prevalence rates is caused by geographical location, lifestyle [18,9,39], health status [18], population density of cats [9,39], prophylactic measures [14], and various diagnostic laboratory methods [40]. [17] The prevalence of FeLV infection observed in the current study (Fig. 1) was similar to the results of studies from Italy [52,41], Austria [44], Poland [30], Cyprus [46], Israel [5], Brazil [51], and Mexico [42] (Table 2).…”

“…Three large prevalence studies have been conducted in North America [15,11,16]. Reported European prevalence ranged from 3.3% to 11.8% [17,8] for FeLV and from 3.2% to 23.6% for FIV [18,19] when client-owned cats were examined.…”