*NEW* Feline Vaccinations - Alpine Animal Hospital

New & Improved Vaccinations for your Cats!

The doctors and staff at Alpine Animal Hospital are dedicated to providing high quality and up-to-date preventative care for your feline companions, including regular vaccinations. Vaccines are important for an individual cat’s health, and for the prevention of disease outbreaks in a community. However, vaccines are not without risk, as they work by stimulating the immune system. Adjuvants are ingredients in some vaccines that are designed to enhance the recipient’s immune response. These components of vaccines have come under fire lately as a possible cause of the rare (only 1-2/10,000 vaccinated cats) but serious complication of vaccinations in some cats - the vaccine site-associated sarcoma. While research is ongoing to determine what causes this aggressive tumor to develop in some cats, it is currently speculated that inflammation at the site of vaccination leads to tumor development. Adjuvanted vaccines are shown to cause more inflammation than non-adjuvanted vaccines.

Due to this latest research, Alpine Animal Hospital is changing our feline vaccination protocol to include only non-adjuvanted vaccinations.

FVRCP

Our current FVRCP (feline Rhinotracheitis, Calicivirus, and Panleukopenia) vaccine is administered intra-nasally (liquid dropped into the nose) as opposed to as an injection, thus eliminating the possibility of vaccine site-associated sarcomas entirely!

FeLV

The new FeLV vaccine is administered trans-dermally (through the skin) with a nifty gadget called the VET JET™ that may startle your kitty with an audible click.

Rabies

In order to further minimize the risk of sarcoma formation in our feline patients, we will now be using the non-adjuvanted Merial Purvax Rabies Vaccine.

A few keys points to remember during this transition are: 1) Rabies vaccination will now be annual, in addition to annual FVRCP and FeLV (only recommended for at-risk cats). 2) New technology unfortunately costs a little bit more than older technology.

We are excited to offer these new and improved vaccinations to our patients. Please call to schedule your cat’s annual wellness examination (or semi-annual for our senior cats!) today!! During your appointment, please feel free to ask questions about these new vaccines.