Feline panleukopenia is a highly contagious, often fatal disease that causes severe welfare harm in unvaccinated cats and kittens, particularly in shelter populations.
Feline panleukopenia causes one of the most severe and rapidly fatal welfare emergencies in cat medicine. Affected kittens progress from apparent health to profound depression, vomiting, haemorrhagic diarrhoea, and death within days. The suffering is intense and the prognosis for inadequately treated cases is poor. In shelter populations with inadequate vaccination and biosecurity, outbreaks cause mass mortality and intense suffering in large numbers of cats. Vaccination is among the most cost-effective welfare interventions in feline medicine, preventing severe suffering at very low cost per cat.