Feline Coronavirus Infection: Genomics and Epizootology

Introduction. The issue of coronavirus infection prevalence in cats is still acute. Particular danger of infecting the animals lies in possible mutations of the virus, the asymptomatic course of the disease, high prevalence of the virus carriage in cats and development of the viral peritonitis in some of the specimens often causing the death of animals. The aim of this work is to study the relation between the keeping conditions and the coronavirus infection prevalence in cat populations in different countries, as well as the possibility of the viral peritonitis development in this species of animal.

Materials and Methods. The analysis of the Russian and foreign sources published before March 2023 was carried out. Based on the research made by the scientists from the Netherlands, Korea, Germany, Taiwan, Australia, Sweden, Czech Republic, Malaysia and Turkey, the relation between the cat keeping conditions and the coronavirus infection prevalence in their populations was studied and the brief characteristics of the disease was given.

Results. Based on the analysis of the several epizootological study results, it was concluded that the rate of companion cats infection with the coronavirus reached 80 %, and one of the highest rates was recorded in Germany: 76.5 % (Confidence Interval (CI) 95 %: 69.8 %; 82.2 %) and 84 % (CI 95 %: 73.3 %; 94.9 %), respectively. Coronavirus infection prevalence in cats kept in groups, as well as in stray cats was significantly higher than in animals kept in isolation.

Discussion and Conclusions. Studying the FCoV prevalence in various cat populations revealed its direct dependence from the keeping conditions. The need to control and limit the number of animals that are kept together, as well as to comply with all the keeping and quarantine standards, is shown, and could become the way for the cat owners to suppress the infectious disease agents transmission.