Feline leukemia test kits questioned

PLAINS TWP. – A local animal shelter is trying to confirm whether faulty test kits caused the facility to release cats infected with feline leukemia to adopters.

The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals of Luzerne County tests for the virus before a cat is adopted, but the results have been questionable on several occasions, according to Executive Director Vince Sweeney.

Feline leukemia is a potentially deadly virus that only affects cats and can’t be transmitted between species.

“A lot of cats live long and die of old age” with the virus, Sweeney said, and not every shelter tests for it.

“We do it because, quite frankly, we’re a little fussy about what animals we adopt out,” he said.

An adopter complained last week that a cat that had received a “hard negative” result from the SPCA tested a “weak positive” during a veterinary visit, Sweeney said.

“As soon as we found out about that, we immediately stopped using the test kits and embargoed” the cats, he said.

A subsequent test of another cat also found a hard negative, he said, but after the test had sat out overnight, it had changed to the same weak positive.

“These kits are not supposed to take more than a couple of minutes … That was the bigger of the two red flags,” he said. “We just couldn’t figure out how that happened … It’s very possible that we just happened to pick up a couple of faulty test kits … mixed in with the hundreds and hundreds that we use here.”

The facility began using a different, more expensive test on Tuesday morning until the confusion is resolved, and the cat embargo ended Tuesday afternoon.