The report below also notes that ST398 is linked with ventilator associated pneumonia. It also suggests a trail of evidence for animal to human transmission.
Of particular interest is whether MRSA may be transmitted between animals and humans. MRSA of clonal lineage sequence type (ST) 22 is widely disseminated in human hospitals in the United Kingdom and Central Europe. The demonstration of this lineage among MRSA isolates from staff and from pets in a small animal referral hospital in United Kingdom suggests transmission between humans and animals (5). Nasal colonization of veterinary staff with MRSA (ST8) from infections in horses in a veterinary hospital was frequently observed in Canada (4), and it was also recorded in an Austrian university veterinary hospital where horses were affected by MRSA of clonal lineage ST254 (3).
We report on molecular characterization of MRSA, from sporadic infections in humans and in various animal species, that belong to clonal lineage ST398 according to multilocus sequence typing (MLST). These isolates were further characterized by spa-sequence typing (repeat polymorphism of the X-region of the spa gene) and by PCR for grouping of staphylococcal cassette chromosome mec (SCCmec) elements, which contain the mecA…
