Cat reinfects owner with MRSA

Link: The Bay Area Reporter Online | Keeping you and your pets healthy.

Include on that list the overly-hyped infection MRSA, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. The family cat was the source of a recurring MRSA infection in an otherwise healthy German woman, according to a report published in the New England Journal of Medicine in March. The woman developed multiple deep skin abscesses caused by MRSA. She was treated but the infection came back. Screening found the bug in the nose of other family members, even though they had no signs of active infections. They were treated, but the mother s abscesses came back. In desperation the doctor swabbed the throats of the three family cats, and one of them came back positive for MRSA. The bacteria sample from the cat had the same patterns of drug resistance seen in the mother. The animal was treated and so was the woman. This time her sores cleared up for good. She was no longer being reinfected by others in the household. Veterinarians first noticed MRSA in the milk of a cow in 1972, but reports of the infection in all types of animals really have exploded in the last five years, said Jeff Bender, a professor of veterinary public health at the University of Minnesota. "Typically pets clear this rather rapidly, in a couple of weeks, as long as there is not reinfection," said J. Scott Weese, a professor at the Ontario Veterinary College at the University of Guelph, in Canada. "If you see long-term colonization, usually it is because it is passing between different individuals in the household, humans or animals."