Work by two researchers at Kansas State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine is showing promise in stopping a deadly cat disease.

Feline infectious peritonitis, also known as FIP, is a viral infection of cats that is nearly 100 percent fatal. But in a study that was funded in part with a grant from the Morris Animal Foundation, the Kansas State University researchers and researchers at two other universities successfully blocked progression of the disease.

Kansas State University’s Yunjeong Kim, associate professor, and Kyeong-Ok Chang, professor, both of diagnostic medicine and pathobiology, and William Groutas, a distinguished professor of chemistry at Wichita State University, developed the antiviral compounds used in the study. In a collaboration and demonstration with Niels Pedersen, professor emeritus of medicine and epidemiology at the University of California, Davis, one of the research compounds stopped progression of FIP and led to clinical recovery to cats with the disease.

“These findings showed that inhibiting growth of the virus is the critical component of treatment for FIP,” Kim said. “This will help us and other researchers find a way to effectively manage or treat FIP in the future. Also, these findings have broader implications for other important coronavirus infections, since no antiviral drugs exist for human or animal coronaviruses.”