via PFGE diversity within the methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus clonal lineage ST398 – 7thSpace Interactive.

Seemingly healthy animals are sometimes colonized with the bacteria, and there is evidence humans can both transmit it to animals and become colonized or infected from them. Infections have been reported in horses, dogs, cats, pet birds, cattle, and pigs, the backgrounder states.

The publication says veterinarians are at risk of becoming MRSA reservoirs. About 6.5 percent of practitioners who attended the 2005 American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine Forum and volunteered for testing were colonized with MRSA. None had been recently hospitalized or previously had the infection diagnosed.

Of those volunteers, about 4.4 percent of small animal practitioners and about 15.6 percent of large animal practitioners were colonized.

About one percent of the general public is colonized with MRSA and 30 percent with Staphylococcus, according to information from CDC spokeswoman Nicole Coffin.

The AVMA backgrounder says veterinarians need to practice proper hygiene and educate others who come into contact with infected animals how to minimize risks.

To read the publication, go to www.avma.org, click on the Reference tab, and follow the Animal Health link. FAQ sections are available through links on the side of the full article.

AVMA backgrounder cautions practitioners about risks of MRSA – November 15, 2008.

It was recently observed that pig breeders in The Netherlands often carry methicillin-resistant Staphylococus aureus (MRSA). These MRSA strains are related to MRSA strains found in pigs. A case-control study showed that not only pig breeders but also cattle breeders are at risk of carrying MRSA. It is advised to keep pig breeders, if they are admitted to a hospital, in isolation until surveillance cultures are proven negative. This also applies to veterinarians and slaughterhouse personnel. For cattle breeders screening without isolation on admission to a hospital is sufficient.

[Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus in pi...[Ned Tijdschr Geneeskd. 2006] – PubMed Result.

A convenience sample of 272 participants at an international conference on pig health in Denmark was screened for MRSA carriage using combined nose/throat swabs and were asked to complete a questionnaire concerning animal contacts, exposure to known MRSA risk-factors, and the protective measures taken when entering pig farms. In total, 34 (12.5%) participants from nine countries carried MRSA. Thirty-one of these isolates were non-typeable by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis following SmaI digestion of chromosomal DNA. All of the non-typeable isolates belonged to spa types (t011, t034, t108, t571, t567 and t899) that correspond to multilocus sequence type 398. All of the above-mentioned spa types, with the exception of t899, have been isolated previously from either Dutch pigs, pig farmers and/or veterinarians. Protective measures, e.g., masks, gowns and gloves, did not protect against MRSA acquisition. Transmission of MRSA from pigs to staff tending to these animals appears to be an international problem, creating a new reservoir for community-acquired MRSA (CA-MRSA) in humans in Europe, and possibly worldwide. The rise of a new zoonotic source of MRSA could have a severe impact on the epidemiology of CA-MRSA, and may have consequences for the control of MRSA, especially in those countries that maintain a low prevalence by means of search-and-destroy policies.

Prevalence of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus…[Clin Microbiol Infect. 2008] – PubMed Result.

In 2007, 678 pigs of all age groups out of 347 different farms from Lower Saxony and Northrhine-Westphalia and 86 persons occupationally exposed to pigs were investigated for their nasal colonisation with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus areus (MRSA) by the Field Station for Epidemiology of the University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover and the Robert Koch-Institute. At the individual animal level, a frequency of positive results of 13% (n = 85 positive animals) and at the herd level, a frequency of positive results of 18% (n = 62 positive herds) were found. All isolates were assigned to the Multilocus Sequence Typing Type ST398. Within MRSA-positive herds, there were more MRSA-negative than MRSA-positive animals. Among the occupationally exposed persons (veterinarians, laboratory personnel and meat inspection personnel), 20 persons (23%) showed a nasal colonisation with MRSA ST398. A quite strong association between the intensity of the contact to pigs with the frequency of nasal colonisation in the occupationally exposed persons was detected. None of the animals or the humans nasally colonised by MRSA ST398 showed any clinical symptoms of a staphylococcal infection. Conclusions are drawn on the herd and intra-herd prevalence of the nasal colonisation of pigs with MRSA ST398 in pigs, but especially on which questions need to be addressed by further research.

[Occurrence of MRSA in pigs and in humans involved...[Dtsch Tierarztl Wochenschr. 2008] – PubMed Result.

To determine if MRSA is present in U.S. market hogs, Wagstrom reports the National Pork Board has funded a project with Leman Swine Chair Peter Davies, DVM, of the University of Minnesota. He will establish the prevalence of MRSA in swine veterinarians. Davies will also survey retail pork cuts for the presence of MRSA. The bacteria is not a known food safety concern.

Then the bad news

Being a carrier of MRSA, however, does not mean one will become sick or spread the bacteria to others, says Liz Wagstrom, DVM, assistant vice president of Science and Technology.Recent reports of community-acquired MRSA infections haven’t been linked to exposure to pigs, she points out.Holland has reported several hundred cases of MRSA, but only a handful of cases have been due to cloned complex 398, considered “the livestock-associated type of MRSA,” she says.Dutch and Canadian officials found MRSA carried in pigs, but it is not considered a pathogen in pigs.

A little naive or perhaps even disengenous. 1 in 3 carriers do have an infection of some sort. It also spreads from human to human

MRSA Scare Blown Out of Proportion | Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA).