FIV/FeLV Tests – Important Information

11/24/20 – Important information about FIV/FeLV tests. Please read and share if you have pets or are involved in rescue or animal advocacy. – diana
“Hello Team, Mom here.
Sooo, in rescue…and veterinary medicine it seems like theres always something new to learn, and I’m grateful for that. I was not going to post about Scouts test until he retested but I think its important for people to know. When snap testing there are 3 types of tests( I only knew about 2 until today). One is done with plasma, only takes a few minutes, and it is the most likely to give a false positive. The 2nd is with serum, it’s when the blood 1st has to clot and then is spun down( I did not know about this one). It is much more accurate but takes over 30min. And the 3rd and this one is the gold standard is the IFA test which is sent out and takes 7-10 days to come back. In the interest of saving time, and understandable most vets use the 1st. And a negative test as a rule means negative. But a positive test could very well also be negative. You should always ask that the positive test be re-run with serum. Some vets do not do the serum tests at all, and some no longer consider the 1st method reliable and only use Serum and if the Serum comes back positive an IFA test is the next step. So if your vet uses the 1st method, always ask for the serum test. Having said all that, Scouts test came back positive for FeLV ran with the 1st method. After gathering all this new information and speaking with Dr. Z (she no longer uses method one at all) and “Auntie Di” the decision is to obviously have the test rerun at Dr. Zs as soon as we can get him in. I dont know for sure that it will change the outcome, but we will keep you posted. I’m so grateful for 4 Paws 1 Heart who always have these kids backs and goes with the opinions of the experts. ❤ Stay tuned Team! – Denise”scout 11:25:20
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