The ABCD meets twice a year to discuss new guidelines and update old ones. We’re also translating our tools and fact sheets and besides our website we’ve now also created a Facebook page as well as a monthly newsletter – and we’re present at major congresses. All this requires a huge investment in time and resources, which has had several consequences:

1. Time has come to establish the ABCD as a self-governing body. While we are very grateful to Boehringer Ingelheim for their unwavering (and continued!) support for well over 13 years, this step will allow the ABCD to consider support from other players in the veterinary industry in order to continue its mission – and reinforce our brand independence. The first new partner to announce its support was the veterinary pharmaceutical company Virbac.

2. A co-chair has been appointed to help relieve the increased workload. Margaret Hosie (Glasgow University, UK) has become co-chair of the ABCD, and now jointly presides the ABCD with Karin Möstl (Vienna, Austria).
Many changes lie ahead, but 2019 promises to be an excellent year, with many more guidelines and practical tools and fact sheets to come!

Karin Möstl and Margaret Hosie

Upon a joint initiative of veterinary clinicians, scientists and an industry sponsor, the Advisory Board on Cat Diseases (ABCD) has been constituted. In 2005, ABCD held its first meeting in Lyon, France. Its objectives are to communicate scientific developments in feline infectious diseases, to establish a rational base for vaccine use and for disease prevention and control in the cat and to publish its conclusions for the companion animal practitioners’ scene. It is achieving this goal by organizing conventions, at which specific issues are scheduled, discussed and agreed upon. The objective is to define a code of practice that reflects the present state of knowledge on infectious diseases of the cat.