At present there is no FIV vaccine available commercially in Europe. Experimentally, vaccine-induced protection against FIV infection has been achieved in cats using several mmunogens, including inactivated virus or inactivated infected cell vaccines, canarypoxbased vaccines in combination with inactivated cells and DNA vaccines [Hosie and Beatty 2007]. Of these vaccines, the most successful to date have been whole inactivated virus vaccines (WIV) preparations; one such vaccine has been available commercially to veterinarians in the USA since 2002 and in Australia and New Zealand since 2004.
However, the efficacy of the vaccine has not been tested against a range of European field isolates. In one study vaccination was shown not to protect cats against a virulent UK primary isolate of FIV [Dunham et al. 2006]. Also, imported vaccinated cats might not be protected against natural challenge with European FIV isolates.
ABCD does not recommend the use of the whole inactivated virus vaccine available outside Europe, given the problems associated with serological diagnosis of infections andlack of evidence of efficacy against European isolates.