Affordable FIP Treatment, So That More Cats Can Be Saved
Who we are, and why we set out to make treatment for feline infectious peritonitis something an ordinary household — and an ordinary clinic — can actually reach.
Who we are
Hello. We are FIP Support. As we begin writing in English, we would like to introduce ourselves and explain how this work started.
Twenty years ago, a chance encounter led us to start living with rescue cats, and we still share our home with many of them today. To protect their health, we have kept studying on our own — disease prevention first, and then whatever else we could learn about the illnesses cats face.
Why FIP
Four years into that self-education, we came across feline infectious peritonitis (FIP): a disease whose treatment costs are enormous. Fortunately, no cat in our household has ever developed it. But two things about it would not leave us alone.
Without antiviral treatment, a cat that develops FIP is almost certainly lost.
With treatment, the cost — the large majority of it the price of the drug itself — is high enough to do lasting damage to a household’s finances.
Living with that knowledge, and with the thought of what we would do if it were one of ours, we began to look into the problem properly.
Finding the source
What our research kept returning to was a single practical fact: the drug is manufactured in China. Three years ago we began trying to find the manufacturer. For a long time we got nowhere at all.
Recently, through an introduction from an acquaintance, we were finally able to reach them. After a series of face-to-face meetings, we succeeded in establishing a supply arrangement that allows the drug to be offered at a far lower price. We are now building out these pages alongside our awareness work.
Where FIP treatment stands today
FIP forces owners into a choice that is painful in every direction. Without the drug, the cat is lost in the overwhelming majority of cases — a figure often quoted as around 99 percent, and one that reflects how the disease behaved before effective antivirals existed (Pedersen 2009). With the drug, the price has been high enough to crush a household budget, leaving some families no real option but to wait and watch, betting on whatever fraction of a chance remains.
The near-certain fatality of FIP describes the pre-antiviral era. It is not a statement about outcomes today, and it is not a prediction for any individual cat. Nor can FIP be confirmed by any single test — a diagnosis is assembled from the whole clinical picture.
We have kept working at this with one aim: to break that deadlock. Only now can we finally see a path to solving both halves of the problem at the same time.
The price of the drug has also made veterinary clinics understandably cautious about taking on FIP cases at all. Now that it can be supplied affordably, our sincere hope is that FIP treatment becomes something clinics across Japan can offer as a matter of course.
What we will publish here
On these pages we will share, step by step, information about FIP itself, practical knowledge about diagnosis and treatment, and an account of our own work as it develops.
If it helps save even one more cat, it will have been worth doing. Thank you for reading.
References
- Pedersen NC. A review of feline infectious peritonitis virus infection: 1963–2008. J Feline Med Surg. 2009;11(4):225–258.