[Feline leukemia: current status regarding prevention]

Particularly as a result of the increasing popularity of keeping cats as pets, feline leukaemia constituted a risk to the cat population for many years; it was uncontrollable because of its insidious course and the spread of the virus, which passed unnoticed. During the past decade, diagnostic laboratory tests resulted in progress in the control of the infection for the first time. Dissemination of the virus could then at least be checked to some extent. Prevention by vaccination did not appear to be possible for many years. Promising developments thanks to biotechnical progress and experiments with other retrovirus systems were only recently reported. A vaccine for use in practice is currently being launched in the United States and different countries in Europe. It remains to be seen whether this vaccine, the manufacture of which is quite expensive, will prove successful and whether new developments will occur in the near future, which will bring further improvements concerning protection and reduction of the cost of production.