Is There a Treatment for FIP in Cats on the Horizon?

Anyone who is familiar with feline infectious peritonitis (FIP in cats) has likely personally experienced the viral infection's devastating result. This virus, caused by a rare and not fully understood mutation in a particular feline coronavirus, almost always infects young kittens (or very old cats) and will ultimately prove fatal. For years since its discovery, no true treatment has been available, and options were merely to euthanize or provide supportive care to your infected cat.

That is, until now. There is finally some hope on the horizon for the treatment of this awful disease. Scientists have found experimental evidence that a new particular antiviral medication may reverse the damage that FIP has caused. Preliminary research has shown promise in doing so in cats that were treated at such a late stage of disease that death would have been expected to follow within weeks. Instead, these cats made full recoveries within 20 days.

Cats used in the study were deliberately experimentally induced with the FIP infection in a laboratory setting, so future studies will be needed for the treatment of cats who have contracted the virus naturally. However, the research to date is the first true shining possibility of a cure that FIP treatment has seen in years.

To learn more about the study, please read the published paper here or read the Discovery News bulletin here. For more information on FIP in cats, please read our Care Library article.