MRSA, Staph, Staff, Mersa, Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus Symptoms & Treatment

New Study Links Animal Agriculture To More Than 20% Of MRSA Infections In The Netherlands

Link: New Study Links Animal Agriculture To More Than 20% Of MRSA Infections In The Netherlands.

The new strain of MRSA, NT-MRSA, emerged in the Netherlands in 2003 and increased steadily until by 2006 it accounted for more than one out of every five human MRSA infections, many of them in either pig farmers or cattle farmers. The NT-MRSA cases clustered in regions of the country with high densities of pig and cattle farms. The new strain has high rates of hospitalization, suggesting that it causes severe disease. Research published this fall in Veterinary Microbiology found MRSA was also prevalent in Canadian pigs and pig farmers, pointing again to animal agriculture as a source of the deadly bacteria. Despite these studies and others from Europe dating back to 2005, the United States does not systematically test pigs, cattle, and other food animals for MRSA. As a result, the US public health establishment does not know whether the use of antibiotics in food animals in the United States is contributing to the reported surge of MRSA cases in the United States.

Boston media call for MRSA to be tracked on farms

Link: Health hazard on the farm - The Boston Globe.

A HARD-TO-TREAT bacterial infection that kills more Americans than AIDS was once limited to hospitals and nursing homes. But this staph infection is becomingly increasingly common in prisons, schools, and on sports teams. Now Canadian researchers have found methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, among pigs and workers on Canadian pig farms. Congress should insist that federal regulators develop a surveillance system to track the incidence of MSRA not just in healthcare facilities but on farms and other settings as well.

US concern over MRSA in Pigs

Link: US Calls for More MRSA Surveillance in view of Canadian findings.

News that Canadian researchers had found MRSA on pig farms in Ontario has prompted calls for the US government to insist that federal regulators introduce a more intensive surveillance system. Campaigners want to see measures in place to track the incidence of the deadly bacteria in premises other than healthcare facilities. The super bug is prevalent in the environment and farms are a prime site. The Netherlands confirmed that it had isolated an MRSA strain on a pig unit earlier this year and there are substantiated reports of the infection occuring in similar situations in the Far East and Asia. In the pig industry, the close proximity in which stockpeople work with their animals appears to be a critical factor. The risk of transmission from animals to people, or because of the production practices used and/or the work environment, may be exacerbated.

Food Standards Agency Alert to to MRSA Risk

Link: Food Standards Agency - Agency response to MRSA report.

The Agency is aware of this issue and we are keeping a watching brief on developments across Europe,' said Paul Cook of the Food Standards Agency Microbiological Safety Division. 'However, this is already being considered jointly by a number of Government agencies. Any possible emerging risk in the UK will be assessed, and appropriate action will be taken. 'We have only just received the report from the Soil Association, which we will examine in detail.' None of the new strain of MRSA has been found in UK food-producing animals. The Agency's advice on avoiding food poisoning bacteria applies equally to any strain of MRSA. Proper cooking will destroy MRSA. Guidance on the safe handling and cooking of food, especially meat, is available at the link below.

MRSA warning on supermarket food

Link: MRSA warning on supermarket food - Talking Retail.

According to a report by the Soil Association, a serious human-health threat already present in the Netherlands and other European countries, could spread to the UK. The report claims that farm-animal MRSA has already transferred to farmers, farm-workers and their families in the Netherlands, causing serious health impacts. The Soil Association is now calling on the government to urgently instigate a testing programme to establish the MRSA status of UK livestock and meat on sale. Richard Young, Soil Association policy adviser said: “This new type of MRSA is spreading like wildfire across Europe, and we know it is transferring from farm animals to humans – with serious health impacts. “Fortunately, it has not yet been found in UK livestock or imported meat, but then neither the government nor the Food Standards Agency are looking for it in live animals or meat.”

Italian study finds MRSA in food chain

Link: HighWire Press -- Medline Abstract.

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) strains are a global health concern. The present study regarded 160 S. aureus strains that had been isolated from 1634 foodstuff samples of animal origin in a previous survey conducted in Italy during 2003-2005. The strains were characterized by detecting the mecA gene, the production of type A to D staphylococcal enterotoxins (SEs), and studying their resistance properties against several antibiotics; their ecological origin was determined by biotyping. Of the 160 analyzed S. aureus strains six (3.75%) were mecA positive and derived from six different samples; four isolates were from bovine milk and two from dairy products (pecorino cheese and mozzarella cheese). Two strains isolated from milk belonged to the non-host-specific biovar while the others to the ovine biovar. The strain isolated from mozzarella cheese belonged to the non-host-specific biovar and the strain isolated from pecorino cheese to the ovine biovar. All the MRSA strains isolated were enterotoxigenic; two strains synthesized SEA/SED two SED and one SEC. All the strains showed resistance to at least one of the antibiotics tested but none was resistant to glycopeptides.

Food Chain Factor in Drug Resistance

Link: NetDoctor.co.uk - Daily news.

     Restricting the use of antibiotics in animals may prevent drug-resistance in humans, new research suggests. The research, published in the Clinical Infectious Diseases journal, found that the Australian government's policy of restricting the use of the antibiotic fluoroquinolone in food animals has caused a reduction in the levels of drug-resistant bacteria in people. The researchers measured the levels of drug resistance of the bacteria campylobacter jejuni - a leading cause of food-borne illness - in Australian subjects and compared them with non-Australians whose countries did not restrict the use of fluoroquinolone. They found that in the Australian subjects the levels of drug resistance of the bacteria was significantly reduced. Commenting on the results, lead researcher Leanne Unicomb, an epidemiologist with Australia National University, said that the results strongly suggested a link between animal antibiotic use and human drug resistance.

Food chain disease critic dies

Link: Independent Online Edition > Obituaries.

     Andy Anderson, as he was known to friends and colleagues (he hated the names Ephraim Saul), made internationally acclaimed contributions to our knowledge of the genes responsible for resistance - and did so without benefit of the techniques that now greatly facilitate such work. At the same time he was a major driving force behind moves to curb the spread of resistance through restrictions on the indiscriminate use of these drugs, especially in the rearing of calves, pigs, poultry and other livestock in Britain. Long into retirement, he remained concerned that such initiatives had not gone far enough to combat a phenomenon which (in the form of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, MRSA, for example) remains with us today.

MRSA in Chickens used for food

Link: HighWire Press -- Medline Abstract.

Two isolates of mecA-positive methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) from retail raw chicken meat were characterized by phenotypic and genotypic methods. One isolate showed the human biovar, coagulase type III, phage group I . III, the lack of production of enterotoxins and TSST-1, and resistance to PCG/ABPC/EM/GM/KM. The other isolate showed the human biovar, coagulase type III, phage group III, production of enterotoxin C and TSST-1, and resistance to PCG/ABPC/CEZ. The biotyping results indicate that the two isolates showed characteristics of human S. aureus. They also harbored SCCmec type IV, which has prevalently been found in community-acquired MRSA isolates. This paper is the first publication regarding MRSA isolates from raw chicken meat in Japan.

Animal feed a Resistance Factor

Link: Highlights from ICAAC

Antibiotics for Growth Promotion in Animal Feeds: An impressive report by A. Van Den Bogaard et al, from the Netherlands [Abstract C-77] addressed the issue of antibiotics as growth promoters in animal feed. The authors noted that Sweden prohibited the use of antibiotics for this purpose in 1986, in the Netherlands there is an annual use of 300,000 kilograms of antibiotics for growth promotion in animals. This study was an analysis of E. coli and enterococci from stool samples of pigs in the Netherlands (n = 1,321) and from Sweden (n = 100). VRE were detected in 39% of samples from the Netherlands compared to 0% in Sweden. There was also a significant decrease in the prevalence of resistance in isolates from Swedish pigs for ampicillin, tetracycline, chloramphenicol, trimethoprim and neomycin in E. coli.