    Advise destruction of a sick cat if the result is positive by ELISA as the cat has a short life expectancy and is infectious to other cats. Therapy by radiomimetic drugs, e.g. corticosteroids and cyclophosphamide may prolong life for a few weeks, but is not recommended, or entirely ethical. Healthy positive cats should have the ELISA diagnosis confirmed by isolation and then owners counselled.
    Breeding catteries. Test and removal. The cattery is considered FeLV-free when it has had 2 clear tests. Vaccination is then used. The cattery only accepts or breeds with cats which have been tested for FeLV or come from FeLV-free catteries.
    Vaccination against FeLV-A. The individual cat must be shown to be ELISA negative before vaccination because the vaccine cannot cure the infection. Many boarding cattereies now require vaccination. The first UK vaccine was 'Leukogen' by Virbac. Subgroup A envelope protein gp70 is produced in E coli as a non- glycolated P45 protein. This is mixed with Quill-A and alhydrogel to form an innocuous adjuvant. Solvay in their 1997 sales brochure quote good protection by an inactivated whole FeLV(A+B) virus vaccine Fevaxyn FeLV and this vaccine produces higher levels of neutralising antibody than Leukogen. Adjuvanted cat vaccines have been implicated in the growth of subcutaneous fibrosarcoma at the injection site. To avoid this vets sometimes inject each vaccine at a separate site or into the muscle.
  Vaccines based on the subcutaneous expression of envelope protein of FeLV (and also Rabies) by canary poxvirus vectors are now available. These aim to compete with the adjuvant-based vaccines, which are implicated in cutaneous fibrosarcoma of cats (see above. They produce protein but no infectious virus in mammals and induce a strong cell-mediated immunity (Enzo Paoletti, 1996, Proceedings National Academy of Sciences, USA, (Vol 93, pp11349-53).
    Import restrictions, e.g. by Holland, any imported cat must have virus - negative blood test.