Vet says cats should be kept indoors as nationwide cat vaccine shortage likely to continue to mid-May

Cat owners are being urged to try keep their beloved pets indoors as a nationwide cat vaccine shortage continues to affect local supply, leaving cats unprotected against potentially life-threatening diseases. Marjorie Lukin from The Animal Hospital Kalgoorlie said “complicated supply problems post-COVID” had created a shortage of cat vaccines since last year, which she hopes will return to normal in mid-May. Dr Lukin said the clinic had not received a supply of cat vaccines for months and the few that remained for kittens and most at-risk cats were now also running low. She urged cat owners to continue to keep their cats home as much as possible until vaccines became available again to continue to protect them from diseases. “We have been trying to do some contingency plans like saving vaccines to give to kittens who are the most susceptible to infections because some of the adult cats that have had the initial vaccines will have some residual immunity,” she said. “But unfortunately, now we’re even getting low on the supplies we’ve been saving for the kittens. “So we’re really waiting now for them to come back into supply, which we’re not expecting to resume to normal until mid-May at the earliest. “Our advice to cat owners, and in particular kitten owners, is to not let them wander and try to keep them indoors as much as possible.” Dr Lukin said the clinic was going to have a “huge challenge” ahead when the vaccine supply did return to normal, with the workload already heavy. “We might just have to have a cat vaccine day or something where we can just concentrate on that and get as many as we can done,” she said. “We haven’t actually worked on an exact plan ... but we have been doing a bit of brainstorming on what we can do to help us get through that hurdle when it comes. “We hope that cat owners, once the vaccines are in, do try to keep to their normal vaccine schedule from there to ensure their pets are protected.” Dr Lukin said while there had been no cases of panleukopenia locally in recent times, there was always a possibility of it “rearing its ugly head” again. “It’s very similar to parvo in dogs; it’s a terrible disease and we hope that condition doesn’t get back here and we have to do that fight all over again,” she said. “So we really are asking everyone to try and keep their cats isolated, keep them at home and limit their contact with other cats.”