Isolation and identification of feline calicivirus and feline herpesvirus in Southern Brazil

Henzel, Andréia; Brum, Mário Celso Sperotto; Lautert, Cláudia; Martins, Mathias; Lovato, Luciane Teresinha; Weiblen, Rudi

The castration status of the cats appears to play a larger role than the gender in the epidemiology because some researchers have shown a smaller number of positive spayed females and neutered males in comparison to non-castrated cats (2, 30) . The higher prevalence of the virus among noncastrated cats has been attributed to the behavior of these animals; the likelihood of exposure to virus of neutered/spayed animals may be reduced because social interactions are less likely to occur (30) . In the present study, it was not possible to compare the virus distribution among castrated cats because the data were not available.