A kitten survived deadly disease after UC Davis experimental trial. Now he needs a home
Experimental treatment saved a kitten’s life after he was found abandoned at a Sacramento park suffering from an illness that is usually fatal in cats.
The kitten, later named Grayson, was struggling to walk when he was brought to safety at Front Street Animal Shelter in Old Sacramento. But he wasn’t out of the woods yet. Grayson was quickly diagnosed with feline infectious peritonitis (FIP) — which, according to Krystle Reagan, an assistant professor at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, is nearly always fatal in cats if they don’t receive treatment.
The disease is caused by a feline coronavirus variant, a “cousin” to the one that causes COVID-19 in humans. Up to 95% of cats diagnosed with FIP die without treatment, according to UC Davis studies, and it currently has no approved treatment or cure in the United States.
However, the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine is looking to change that with a series of clinical trials testing antiviral medications for cats. The first results were published in 2018, and the trials have been ongoing since then.
“When I went to vet school, I was taught that if we diagnosed a cat with FIP, the kindest thing to do was to put it down,” Reagan said. “But when Dr. Niels Pedersen started doing research into it, there was a huge change in the way we thought about it. It’s now essentially a curable disease — if we can get them treated.”
Pederson, now a professor emeritus for the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, has been studying FIP since 1964. He was involved in research at UC Davis that found an answer to FIP in the form of antiviral medications safe for cats, and since then, the veterinary school has conducted several clinical trials comparing different antiviral treatments to try and find the best option.
Reagan said that unless the cats in these trials are extremely sick, almost all of them are effectively cured by the end of treatment. Despite this, and despite the fact that there are antiviral treatments for cats approved in both Australia and the United Kingdom, there is currently no approved treatment or cure for FIP in the United States.
Why? It’s likely related to the prioritization of approval for similar antiviral drugs that have been used to treat COVID-19 in humans.
Some of the treatments for FIP that have been tested successfully at UC Davis are very similar to medications that were brought to the market for treatment of COVID-19, according to Reagan.
However, the drug companies that would be responsible for pushing these treatments for animals through to approval appear to have been somewhat resistant to the idea, according to an Atlantic article from 2020 citing Pederson’s view of the process.
The drugs are similar enough that any adverse effects uncovered in cats during clinical trials for approval of FIP treatment might have slowed down the process of approval of the drugs for treatment of COVID-19 in humans, in order to ensure human safety.
Because there is not a readily available, approved treatment in the United States for FIP, Reagan said that some pet owners have turned to other means of saving their cats.
“There is no licensed medication, so some owners have turned to unlicensed medications,” Reagan said. “There’s essentially a black market of antiviral medications.”
UC Davis isn’t involved in the pharmaceutical approval process; instead, Reagan said that they’re solely focused on “the science side” of testing treatments through their ongoing clinical trials.
Grayson was part of one of these trials back in January, and after 16 weeks of treatment, he was declared medically cleared of FIP.
Grayson is now 1 year old. He was described by his foster parent Haley Waugh, a spokesperson for Front Street Animal Shelter, as “friendly and easygoing.” He loves other cats, and doesn’t mind being around dogs.
Though he should remain an indoor-only cat due to a wobbly walk left over from the disease, he still enjoys exploring and wrestling.
If you are interested in adopting Grayson, you can email haley.waugh@yahoo.com.
