3 weeks ago, little Mo started to be lethargic, no appetite, high temp and very slight swollen belly. When we bought Mo at 3 months old (1 year ago), we bought his brother too. After two weeks of having them, Mo’s brother developed FIP and after a short battle against this disease, had to be put to sleep. Since then, we’ve dreaded the thought of Mo developing the 100% fatal FIP too, because of his genetics and the strain of FCOV. So the recent signs above obviously sounded alarm bells. His health deteriorated and after many tests and scans, it was confirmed to have developed FIP. We were absolutely gutted. 16 months old and truly the most crackers, beautiful cat ever. In our minds and the advice of several vets, we were going to have to decide to put him to sleep within a 3-4 day period. With manic Googling and some extremely helpful pointers to FIP Warriors site, we found that there is hope with a brand new drug. Unfortunately it’s not FDA approved and so can’t be supplied by vets or that easy to get hold of and it’s extremely expensive. The several vets involved with Mo had not heard of it either. Within the same evening of research, we talked to a vet down South with knowledge of the drug and said it’s likely to work. With that advice, we managed to buy 2 day’s course of capsules from a wonderful lady, whilst we worked out how to buy any amount of the drug. Every day and hour counts to start the medication. Mo had basically been lying/sleeping in the same spot for 12 days and only eaten small amounts every day, no matter what he was offered. He’d lost physical mass and his belly was now huge, firm with fluid. We popped the 1st pill in his mouth and waited. 5 hours later, he got up and there was a change in his character. He sat upright normally, looked brighter and ate some food! The next day he ate a lot of food. More than any of the days within the preceding 2 weeks. We bought another 10 days worth of capsules, as we had nothing to lose. To cut a long story short, Mo is recovering extremely fast, eating absolutely loads and the swelling has nearly gone, all within 7 days of doses. This is incredible. The full course is for 84 days. The medication is called Mutian. It was apparently developed for treating Ebola in humans and the success with cat FIP is very promising. The vets involved are all extremely surprised and very interested in his progress. It’s a very surreal feeling. Mo should be gone by now, but here he is this morning running around the house. Of course, there is going to be a moral here, never give up hope. Never.
That’s lovely to hear Count.d, I see it’s a synthetic nucleoside and designed to inhibit viral replication.
Utterly fascinating.
Great summary here:
Salient discussion:
GS-441524 is the second targeted antiviral drug after GC376 to be evaluated for the treatment of cats with FIP in the past two to three years.6,12,15 These two drugs inhibited viral replication in two very different manners, either by terminating viral RNA transcription or blocking viral polyprotein cleavage. Both processes are well-established targets for several viral diseases in people.1 A key question is how treatment with a nucleoside analog compares with that of a viral protease inhibitor. The two drugs gave virtually identical results in tissue culture and experimental cat infection studies.12,15 However, efficacy against naturally occurring FIP appeared greater with GS-441524 than GC376. Six of 20 cats treated with GC376 remain in remission to date (Pedersen NC, unpublished data, 2018) compared with 25/31 cats treated with GS-441524. Disease relapses that did not respond to retreatment occurred in 14/20 cats with GC376 and only one cat treated with GS-441524.6 Eight of the 14 relapses associated with GC376 were neurological in nature,6 compared with 2/8 relapses with GS-441524. One of two neurological relapses in GS-441524-treated cats responded to retreatment at a higher dosage, whereas neurological relapses with GC376, even with increased dosage, were no longer treatable.6 Both treatments caused similar injection site reactions. Both drugs appear to be quite safe, although GC376 interfered with the development of permanent teeth when given to younger kittens.6
In all honesty, if UK prices are similar to US ones 160 USD seems pretty good for a 10 day course, and I suspect perhaps a 1/3 of diagnostic/clinical veterinary fees which can’t accurately diagnose it anyway apparently.
Thought it might be a mAb initially, but it isn’t.
The effectiveness is less If the virus has travelled to the brain or spine. Fortunately it didn’t reach Mo’s brain or spine. This is where the statistics show some cats relapsing and hence retreatment at higher dose. There are Facebook groups showing real life usage of this drug and the results are extremely positive.
The dosage is 100mg per kg of cat per day, so the cost from the US site is $720 for 10 days for a 4.2kg cat. It needs 84 days treatment minimum!
There are about 3 companies making slight variants of the similar drug and because of the sudden demand, customs and other issues, it’s hard to get hold of. It’s heartbreaking reading peoples plea for help as they’re running out and they could/do watch their cat’s die. Some people can’t afford it too. I have bitten the bullet and bought the whole 12 weeks course in one go, so I don’t have to worry about supply at least.
It’s not FDA approved, but I gather drugs take 4-5 years to get this. I’m not expert on this matter.
Mo has had 13 days of Mutian and all the bloating completely disappeared a couple of days ago. His normal weight before becoming ill was always 3.8-3.9kg. When his bloated belly was at it’s largest, his weight was 4.4kg. Considering he’d not eaten properly for 2 weeks, I’d estimate his true weight (without fluid accumulation) to be 3.5kg. That would mean that he had approx 900ml of fluid accumulation. Quite remarkable that this has gone within 10 days of Mutian. He now weighs 3.8kg, but does look like he could be a little bulkier tbh. He’s active and eating well. He even ventured into the garden today (with a little persuasion).
Fifteen years ago we brought a red Burmese boy into our lives as a Christmas Kitten. About two months ago he got very very seriously ill, and we were resigned to losing him. But thanks to our dedicated vet team, we will have him as a Christmas Kitty this year.
Odd that we’ve been on our own battle against a mutating coronavirus for the past 8 weeks, and at the moment, very successfully treating Mo with a medication from China. Now the news around the world is all about coronavirus! If we’re all imminently doomed, I have treatment, so it’s either me or the cat.
I’ll have to do an update with some details shortly, but at the moment he’s doing brilliant. He will have done 8 weeks tomorrow out of the 12 week course. His blood test results 2 weeks ago showed he was still fighting the virus, but were much better than at the start. This was surprising, as his character, appetite and weight gain have been amazing and I was thinking it would have disappeared. I have a detailed document based on trials and this is normal.
From what started on Nov 19th, Mo has done amazingly and literally one in a million. Who knew that a couple of months later the whole world was talking about coronavirus? Mo finished his 3 months of treatment 6 weeks ago. At that point, he had a full blood test and everything was nearly perfect. Nearly, was to be expected, as the blood levels settle after treatment. The plan is to have blood tests at 1, 2 & 3 months after treatment finished. He had his 1 month post blood test last week and everything is fine. His appetite and behaviour are perfect, put on weight and grown. This shows the coronavirus was holding his growth rate back, because he stopped growing in June’19. This all ties in with the research by the genius Dr. Pedersen. He’s not 100% guaranteed cured yet, but if it was to return, it would have likely happened by now and/or the treatment wouldn’t have worked.
The treatment is Mutian, interestingly produced by the Chinese. Still not approved, hard to get and so cats are dying unnecessarily. It’ll be very interesting to see how the human coronavirus is treated. Whether there will be a cure after infection or just a vaccination. No doubt cost will come into all this. Mo’s treatment costs roughly £1,500 per 1kg, so if you relate that to a human, it’s a lot.
Here’s Mo today, enjoying self-isolation in the sun.
