Feline leukemia virus (FeLV) is one of the most common and important infectious diseases in cats, affecting between 2% to 3% of all cats in the United States and Canada. Fortunately, the prevalence of FeLV in cats has decreased significantly in the past 25 years since the development of an effective vaccine and accurate testing procedures.
In 1967, the Leukemia Studies Laboratory (later to be renamed the Feline Health Center) was constructed on Snyder Hill, in Ithaca, N.Y., at Cornell University. With help from the National Cancer Institute, Dr. Charles G. Rickard, one of Cornell’s leading feline infectious disease and cancer researchers, and his colleagues Drs. Fernando Noronha and John E. Post, focused their early efforts on improving our understanding of cancer in cats. In 1970, the Feline Leukemia Laboratory’s transmissible strain of feline leukemia provided evidence that feline leukemia is a viral disease.
