Description
This article is from the Feline
Infectious Peritonitis FAQ, posted to rec.pets.cats newsgroup.
Maintained by Erin Miller with numerous contributions by
others.
001. I've heard FIP is like AIDS. Can I catch AIDS or anything else fromit?
People often use the "it's like AIDS" phrase to describe a number of
illnesses in the animal (and human) community with the idea that
most people know so much about AIDS that this analogy is useful.
Unfortunately most people don't know much about AIDS and the
resulting effect is to scare people out of their wits and have
them dump their cats or dogs at the nearest pound because they are
so deathly afraid of catching AIDS from them. The ONLY similarity
between FIP, FIV (Feline Immunodeficiency Virus) and FeLV (Feline
Leukemia Virus) to HIV (which is believed to cause AIDS) is in
their genetic makeup. All are RNA (as opposed to DNA) viruses, and
FeLV and FIV (and HIV) are what are known as "retroviruses." FIP
is a type of "coronavirus" which makes it even less similar to
HIV. To make it clear: THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO WAY TO CATCH AIDS
FROM A CAT, NO MATTER WHAT FELINE DISEASE THAT ANIMAL MAY HAVE.
See the FeLV FAQ for more information on retroviruses.
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Feline Infectious Peritonitis, disease, cat
