Feline panleukopenia (feline parvovirus) is a potentially fatal disease that causes severe suffering. Vaccination is highly protective and one of the most impactful welfare interventions for cats.
Feline panleukopenia causes extreme suffering in affected cats and kittens. Viral destruction of rapidly dividing cells in the bone marrow, intestinal crypts, and cerebellum causes haemorrhagic disease, immunosuppression, and in kittens exposed in utero, cerebellar hypoplasia. Affected kittens that survive the acute disease may live with permanent neurological dysfunction. The welfare case for universal vaccination is unambiguous — vaccination prevents a particularly distressing disease almost entirely. Shelter medicine approaches that vaccinate all incoming cats immediately, before placement in general population housing, have dramatically reduced panleukopenia outbreaks that previously caused welfare catastrophes in shelter environments.