Feline Immunodeficiency Virus (FIV) is manageable in many cats, and FIV-positive cats can live long, good-quality lives with appropriate care and monitoring.
FIV carries a stigma in shelter contexts that leads to disproportionate euthanasia of infected cats whose welfare prognosis is actually good for many years. An FIV-positive cat living indoors with regular veterinary monitoring may have an essentially normal lifespan with excellent quality of life. The welfare tragedy of FIV is not primarily the disease itself but the automatic euthanasia that occurs in some shelter settings when cats test positive, depriving animals of years of good welfare based on a diagnosis that is not an immediate death sentence. Advocating for evidence-based FIV management rather than automatic euthanasia is a genuine welfare action.