The reality of the presence of MRSA in animals is beyond doubt. There is also growing body of research which seeks to clarify how present this pathogen is among animals raised for food.
This is the warning given to Medical Vets
However, we may be witnessing a further niche exploitation by this organism in terms of reports of detection in raw meat products. Reports to date have indicated the presence of MRSA in a number of food-producing animals such as chicken (Kwon et al., 2006, Lee 2006) cattle (Lee, 2006) and rabbits (Rodriguez-Calleja et al., 2006). Interestingly, Kwon and co-workers (2006) reported that, in their study, chicken, bovine milk and animal hospital isolates were closely related using multilocus sequence typing. In the study by Lee (2006) it is reported that whilst both chicken and cattle samples showed the presence of MRSA, the pork samples under examination did not. Preliminary studies (Agyirey-Kwakye et al. unpublished data) undertaken on 150 samples of chicken and pork giving rise to 26 S. aureus isolates from which two phenotypic MRSA isolates were detected, one from pork and one from chicken. Reports have suggested that the presence of MRSA in raw meat products may constitute a health hazard to some consumers despite the rate of isolation being low (Kitai et al., 2005). It is acknowledged that there is a surprising paucity of data relating to the isolation of MRSA from foodstuffs, (Lee, 2003; Kitai et al., 2005).
{ 0 comments… add one now }