Liz Buchanan BVSc MRCVS
Keymaster
Hello
Here is a blog about Feline Leukaemia, FeLV, assuming that this is the disease in question.
https://vethelpdirect.com/vetblog/2021/01/20/do-cats-need-leukaemia-vaccines/
If a cat already has FeLV at the time of vaccination, then the vaccination won't be effective. Furthermore, because there are different types of vaccination on the market, I would recommend that your vet either contacts a representative from the vaccine company, or refers to the data-sheet (a peice of paper that is compulsorarily issued with drugs in the uk, loaded with safety information), to check whether vaccinating your cat is the correct thing to do in your cats' specific circumstances. A lot of vets do reccommend testing a cat of unknown status prior to the vaccination in order to avoid an unnecessary vaccine. The snap-test is quick and, although less reliable, the answer is available immediately. However, false positives can happen - and recently infected cats can read positive for a while and then clear - so later verifying that test is frequently reccommended.
You can get both false positives and false negatives with FeLV tests; no system is perfect. The International Cat Care Website has a good article about this, available for a domation.
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