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URI Project
This project was made possible through two grants from the Morris Animal Foundation, including support for a full time graduate fellow through the Amanda Feline Fellowship – funded by a generous donor in honor of her beloved cat Amanda.
This project is nearing completion so stay tuned for the results in 2011. The goals of the project were to document the rate of URI disease in shelters and ultimately answer the question: Why URI? What factors lead to high or low levels of this sometimes seemingly ubiquitous disease? And most importantly, what can we do about it? Below is the official project summary.
Project summary: Animal shelters vary in their housing, management and environment and ability to maintain animal health. Feline Upper Respiratory Infection (URI) is a common, infectious, multifactorial disease syndrome that is endemic in many animal shelters. Feline URI is a significant cause of morbidity and mortality for shelter cats, as well as a potential marker for evaluation of shelter health practices. The purpose of this study is to measure URI frequency and evaluate the relationships between selected environmental and management risk factors and the occurrence of URI in animal shelters. Housing parameters; enrichment and stress- management procedures; sanitation and disinfectant use; vaccination type and frequency; and other potential population-level risk factors will be documented and updated throughout the project study period. Data will be collected for each shelter via online secure database regarding daily population at risk and URI frequency and rates of URI disease will be reported. Additional detailed environmental data will be collected at a subset of shelters, including measurement of air quality, noise, temperature and humidity. Contributing pathogens for feline URI will be evaluated by real time PCR techniques on samples collected at a subset of shelters from randomized cats at intake and with clinical signs of respiratory disease.
Stay tuned for the results from this Morris Animal Foundation supported project!