You should seek the advice of your veterinarian if your pet is ill as only he or she can correctly advise on the diagnosis and recommend the treatment that is most appropriate for your pet.

Feline coronavirus is commonly found in domestic cats and sometimes it is associated with Feline Infectious Peritonitis (FIP) disease

Feline coronavirus infection is known to be widespread in the domestic cat population although the occurrence of Feline Infectious Peritonitis (FIP) is much less common, because it only occurs in cats that develop an abnormal immune response to the virus. 

According to one study* feline coronavirus is shed from the body mainly in faeces and rarely in saliva. Some asymptomatic cats can shed the virus continually and these carriers pose a serious risk to susceptible cats. Other cats shed virus intermittently, or stop shedding virus altogether. Re-infection is common once a cat has finished shedding the virus and is apparently clear of infection. The authors concluded that a cat could only be considered clear of the disease if no RNA virus was shed in faeces for 5 months and long term carriers can be identified if they have positive results for at least 8 consecutive months. It is important to perform sequential tests because isolated positives or negatives could be misleading depending upon the stage of the disease that the test is performed at.

The authors also found that positive serological tests for antiviral antibodies could be present in the absence of shedding in faeces.

* Reference

Addie D.D. & Jarrett O.  Use of reverse-transcriptase polymerase chain reaction for monitoring the shedding of feline coronavirus by healthy cats. Veterinary Record (2001)148, 649-653

Last updated : January 2016