U.S. Food and Drug Administration
FDA Consumer magazine
July-August 2002
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Research Notebook

First Vaccine for Cat AIDS Approved for Veterinary Use

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has approved the first vaccine for feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV) for commercial production and veterinary use.

The patented vaccine for this disease, which is a cat form of AIDS, has been licensed for manufacture by Fort Dodge Animal Health of Overland Park, Kan., a division of Wyeth. Patents for the vaccine are held by the University of California and the University of Florida.

The vaccine, approved in March, should soon be available to veterinarians. "This vaccine offers the first effective protection for cats against this often fatal disease," says Niels Pedersen, D.V.M., Ph.D., director of the Center for Companion Animal Health at the University of California, Davis and an international authority on retroviruses and immunologic disorders of small animals. "The success of the FIV vaccine also offers hope that eventually a vaccine will be developed that will effectively protect against AIDS in humans."

Pedersen and immunologist Janet K. Yamamoto, Ph.D., now a professor in the University of Florida's College of Veterinary Medicine, first isolated FIV in cats at UC Davis in 1986. Yamamoto has worked with researchers at Fort Dodge Animal Health for more than a decade to develop the vaccine.

FIV is transmitted from cat to cat mainly through bite wounds because the virus is present at high levels in the saliva. Like human AIDS, the virus attacks the body's immune system, making the animal susceptible to diseases and infections that usually would have little effect on an FIV-free animal.

Cats infected with FIV may remain healthy for five to 10 years before symptoms such as diarrhea, weight loss, fever, swollen lymph nodes and chronic infections appear. Although infected cats may recover from their initial illness, they become lifelong carriers of the virus.

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