Livestock Herds: a New Breeding Ground for MRSA?

US - Livestock herds could become a vast breeding ground for MRSA, or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, a formerly rare bacteria found mostly in hospitals but now spreading beyond health care settings.
calendar icon 20 February 2009
clock icon 2 minute read

More than 90,000 people become ill and 18,000 die from MRSA infections each year in the U.S., by one recent estimate, says Oregon Live. To date, the vast majority of human infections are caused by strains that emerged in hospitals because of heavy antibiotic use. Resistant mutants survive treatment and multiply.

But, according to Oregon Live researchers are finding that MRSA bacteria are becoming widespread among pigs, dairy cattle and possibly chickens. The MRSA strain found in livestock has been implicated in only a few cases of illness in people. But health officials are concerned that livestock herds could act as a reservoir from which the bacteria increasingly could spread to vulnerable people.

"We know it’s a potential reservoir right now; the question is, what is the best way to manage the risk," Steve Roach, public health program director for Food Animal Concerns Trusts, told the news organisation.

Dutch authorities in 2003 were the first to detect MRSA in farm animals. They identified a new strain, called ST398, in pigs. Studies since have found the ST398 strain in pigs, cattle and broiler chickens in various European countries. Pigs have also tested positive in Canada and, most recently, the U.S.

Researchers in Iowa found MRSA in nearly half of 299 pigs tested at two large-scale pork producers in Iowa and Illinois. The bacteria also showed up in nine of 14 workers tested at one of the sites, researchers reported last month in the journal PLoS One.

None of the farm workers became ill, but the strain has caused human infections in Europe -- justifying concerns that livestock could serve as a reservoir for spreading illness among people.

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