Dear Mr Perkins,
Thank you for your email and I appreciate the time you have taken to reply to me.
Whilst I fully appreciate that Health and Safety legislation is concerned with human, rather than animal, health I believe that there are a number of key points of which you may be unaware. The exception you note (those cases where infections in veterinary practices may give rise to risk to people) is precisely the point I have been making. I firmly believe that as a result of being confined to a room barefoot and with small open wounds for two days, my own infection of MRSA occurred at the Hendon Medivet clinic, and analysis of the strain showed that it was completely unrelated to the strain found in my dog, thus demonstrating that I could not have contracted my infection from her. It was, perhaps, fortunate for me that my infection was relatively insignificant, but had I been in less robust health, the consequences to myself would have been much more significant.
It is not true that there have been no recorded cases of MRSA being passed from pet to owner: Asymptomatic Nasal Carriage of Mupirocin-Resistant, Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in a Pet Dog Associated with MRSA Infection in Household Contacts Farrin A. Manian Division of Infectious Diseases, St. John's Mercy Medical Centre St. Louis Missouri Received 29 May 2002; accepted 5 August 2002,; electronically published 6 January 2003. clearly documents a repeated process of infection from pet to owner, and it has to be assumed that this was not he only occurrence to have ever taken place.
It should also be noted that in this paper, the authors noted only one other case of MRSA in dogs, whereas the Idexx laboratory in Wetherby has isolated over 250 case of MRSA in animals (I have attached a copy of the letter in which they describe this). It also a fact that other animals have been infected at the same Medivet premises as Bella was, and these animals have returned home to owners concerned with their own vulnerability to MRSA.
It is also true that, speaking informally, Occupational Health department of hospitals will tend to consider pets when presented with repeated colonisation and infection of staff with MRSA. It is true that the prevalent route of transmission appears to be from human to animal, but as there has been virtually no research on the prevalence of MRSA colonisation in healthy pets of infected owners, it cannot be said with any certainty that there is no significant risk.
Veterinary practices, whilst quite possibly having very good health and safety records, have traditionally and systematically failed to establish levels of MRSA contamination in their premises. The fact that it is only in the very recent past that vets have even acknowledged the possibility that pets could carry MRSA serves to show that there has been no interest in investigating the issue.
Thus, the lack of data only illustrates a failure to collect, rather than definitely establishing the level of risk. Finally, I am pleased that the organisations you mention are monitoring and investigating the risk of pet-to-pet transmission of MRSA, but I am unaware of any mechanism by which this is to be achieved. DEFRA, the HPA, the BVA and the BSAVA have not indicated in any accessible arena the mechanism by which this monitoring is to be carried out nor the expected response; and whilst the BSAVA and the RCVS have produced relevant guidelines, these are voluntary and no vet is under any obligation to adhere to them.
I really do appreciate that MRSA in pets is probably considered to be of little importance in the range of issues dealt with by the HSE, but it is worth considering that the BVA, in six months, as a result of my campaign, has gone from essentially denying that MRSA presents a problem in pets to making public statements urging vets to practice proper infection control.
Whilst some will argue that my own infection cannot be proved conclusively to have arisen from the Medivet premises, there really is no other reasonable explanation. As I was infected, so will others be, but for someone it will be too late to do anything about it. The history of infectious processes is characterised by the failure to anticipate trends in epidemiology or, conversely, the creating of a state of alarm disproportionate to the actual risk. My aim is to achieve that middle ground; the proper acceptance by regulatory bodies concerned with societal wellbeing of the potential for serious harm. Thank you for taking the time to read this.
Yours sincerely
Jill Moss.
