You can have titers run. Ours in the past have been processed at
Cornell but I have heard that the Ferret Health Advancement Group at
Michigan State might also run them, so your vet can ask on that score.
With sufficient titer levels vaccines can be skipped that year. I have
links to more on those in this post.

To have the immunity foundation all kits need to have their full kit
series of vaccines, timed properly. If that has not been done then two
distemper virus vaccines are given two to three weeks apart. Without
the foundation there typically is not sufficient protection w current
vaccines.

Distemper is a HORRIBLE way to die.

It is common to use Nobivac when Purevax can not be gotten. Some had
confused Nobivac with Neovac which does NOT have sufficient testing
done to know if it even provides any protection to ferrets. Their own
head of research told me himself that Neovac can not be considered at
this time to work in ferrets.

Some past posts and more with info:

This one has some excellent links and info:
<https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/ferrethealth/conversations/messages/19749>

This study is past but the contact info is still good:
http://www.ferret.org/pdfs/titer_study_cornell_form.pdf

http://www.ferrethealth.msu.edu

<https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/ferrethealth/conversations/messages/16855>

<https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/ferrethealth/conversations/messages/20571>

<https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/ferrethealth/conversations/messages/20557>

There was the possibility that DIM, an exceedingly nasty myofasciitis
MGHT have been caused by a contaminant in a type of vaccine that
vaccine has not been made for a very extended time. That was ONLY
a hypothesis of the cause but as far as I know has never been
demonstrated to be accurate or not. Disseminated Myofasciitis arose
about a decade ago, and was an often written about (in ferret digests)
cause of death for a few years, though it always was rare. Dr. Katrina
Ramsell has an excellent medical approach for it, and consults all over
when vets might be encountering it. The big thing is to REDUCE the
activity of the immune system during that illness. It actually causes
white cell counts that were thought to be inconsistent with life before
it was documented. The illness itself IS dangerous, do not mistake what
I am saying, but the over-reaction of the immune system which it tends
to trigger is what usually kills. Usually, it attacks young ferrets,
but there have been some older ones with it, and it sometimes recurs
in ferrets who have gone into remission. It still is a terribly severe
disease even without all ferrets who get it dying. Even in its heyday
it was rare and now is exceedingly rare, but with the cause unknown it
can not be considered to be gone. It is a horrible illnesses. Among
the things that can look like it are meningitis, lymphoma, some types
of poisoning, some equally rare often fatal infections, etc.

Again it was rare then, but unlikely to ever be forgotten by those of
us who lost a ferret to it it, like our Chiclet.

See:

http://www.miamiferret.org/dimalert.pdf

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23234280

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20682436

http://vet.sagepub.com/content/44/1/25.long

[Posted in FML 8134]