My understanding is that it measures antibodies to any corona virus.
At 07:12 PM 11/8/2006, you wrote:
... . .
I do think that I've read that titre tests measure the antibodies
present, not the virus itself, so a very immune compromised cat may
have exhausted their ability to produce antibodies and test negative
even while quite infected. I think this is what happened with my
Ally, she had a series of smaller illnesses because of her weakened
immune system, by the time things got worse and we suspected FIP, I
think she had used up most of her limited ability to produce
antibodies and thus only had a titre of 1:100. I've read that FCoV
is supposed to be so contagious, hard to control even in sterile lab
settings, but her littermates were with her for the first six weeks
of their lives and they all (as well as big sister Blue) tested
negative at 1:100, so who knows...
Beth
i've also seen that 3 weeks is a long enough time for not bringing
in a cat, and that if the cat came from a shelter or any other
multi-cat environment, there's no point in isolating since it's
probably only been exposed before it came to you.....
i haven't actually seen info re: whether the FCoV is actually even
still present in an FIP cat--since there are lots of cases where
cats presumed to have FIP show no abnormal titre levels..... so even
tho FCoV may be a longer-lived virus, i'm not sure that's the issue....