Animals & MRSA

Podcast groups aid Bella foundation

Link: Animal Talk

       Both podcasting and infectious diseases such as MRSA (Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) are on the rise. MRSA, sometimes referred to as the SUPERBUG, kills around 5,000 human patients a year. It affects both humans and animals, with humans being the carriers who transfer it to animals.

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Staphylococcus is one of many natural bacteria with which we all live, but the problem occurs when this strain of staph known as MRSA gets into the bloodstream through broken skin or a cut. It then weakens the immune system and can be fatal, as in the case of Bella, the dog for whom the Bella Moss Foundation (http://www.thebellamossfoundation.com ) is named. Bella died from complications of MRSA contracted during a routine knee surgery.

During the International Podcasting Expo’s Podcasting Marathon, the hosts from Animal Talk Naturally! (http://www.AnimalTalkNaturally.com), Kim Bloomer and Jeannie Thomason, have invited Jill Moss, Founder of the Bella Moss Foundation and former television actress in the UK, to participate in a live, online podcast. Listeners can attend and ask questions, as well as share their own pet stories. Moss will be discussing the mission of the Foundation, which is to educate pet owners on the dangers of MRSA in pets, how to protect their pets, and the need to bring uniform change to veterinary protocol.

The International Podcasting Expo (http://www.InternationalPodcastingExpo.com) is generously donating all proceeds from the Animal Talk, Naturally! ticket booth to The Bella Moss Foundation. In addition, all sponsorship proceeds for the Animal Expo Hall will also go to the Bella Moss Foundation. "I'm flabbergasted at the generosity of the International Podcasting Expo," stated a joyful Moss. "We're just happy to be part of the solution, which is what Animal Talk, Naturally! is all about!" commented Bloomer. "Podcasting has given us a great voice for the animals, and the Expo is giving us the opportunity to do this in a much more magnanimous way."

Podcast will benefit Bella Moss Foundation

April 22, 2006. From 2PM EST to 3PM EST.

Jill Moss

Please help me bring the issue of MRSA and pets to the public  by buying a ticket for an International Podcast Event.  Your participation in this event is so important, so get online now and book your ticket! At the above date and time:   The Bella Moss Foundation is scheduled to participate in an international podcast hosted in the USA, and a proportion of the admission fee will be donated to The Foundation.

Our Dogs hails the Bella Moss Foundation fight against MRSA scourge

This thorough overview of the issues surrounding Dogs and MRSA infection can be found at the link below:

Download Bella Moss Article Our Dogs Annual

Please note - you will need Adobe Reader. For this article we recommend a broadband/cable connection - this is a large file

MRSA carriage in a pet therapy dog

Link: ScienceDirect - Journal of Hospital Infection

         Pet therapy has been shown to improve the wellbeing of patients, and is becoming routine in many hospitals.1 There are currently approximately 4000 dogs participating in schemes across the UK (www. petsastherapy.org). It has been previously advised that veterinarians should routinely screen all animals for skin infections and gastrointestinal pathogens.1 We report an 11-year-old border collie that acquired methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in a district general hospital in the UK after visiting care-of-the-elderly wards. The dog and owner were asymptomatic and had no observed source of MRSA. Swabs from the dog’s nose, scalp and interdigital folds of paws were taken before and after visiting the wards. Swabs were pooled and cultured in nutrient broth containing 7% salt at 30 8C for 24 h and then subcultured to Baird Parker agar with ciprofloxacin (8 mg/L) at 37 8C for 48 h. Only the swabs taken after the ward visit grew MRSA (tube coagulase positive, mannitol fermenting Staphylococcus species). The antibiotic susceptibility profile was typical of MRSA found in the hospital. The mecA gene was detected by polymerase chain reaction. The isolate was confirmed as MRSA and genotyping by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) showed it to be a variant of EMRSA-15 (Staphylococcus Reference Laboratory, Health Protection Agency, Colindale, UK). Following receipt of this result, two other pet therapy dogs were screened before visiting the hospital and were found to be MRSA negative. Sites were individually cultured and not pooled as was done on the initial screen. MRSA screening of the index dog two weeks later was negative. It was not possible to trace individual patients that the dog had visited. Isolates from seven known MRSA patients on the wards visited by the dog were characterized phenotypically and genotypically. All seven isolates were identified as EMRSA-15 and displayed five different PFGE patterns. All differed from the dog isolate. MRSA is an important cause of nosocomial infection.2

More at the link above

Surveillance of Staphylococcus aureus in Veterinary Teaching Hospitals

Link: Entrez PubMed.

     Staphylococcus aureus isolates (n = 70) from 65 patients (36 canine, 18 equine, 7 bovine, 2 avian, and 2 feline) at seven veterinary teaching hospitals in the United States were studied. The majority of patients (83%) with an S. aureus infection were canine and equine, but this may have reflected a sample bias based on clinic case loads and diagnostic lab submissions at the participating institutions. Fourteen percent of patients with an S. aureus infection were infected with a methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) isolate. Six of seven institutions had at least one MRSA infection during the study. Pulsed-field gel electrophoresis on 63 of the 70 isolates yielded 58 unique strains of S. aureus. None of the strain types of the MRSA isolates matched each other or the type of any other S. aureus isolate. The proportions of patients infected with an MRSA isolate were not significantly different between institutions or animal species (P > or = 0.222). Methicillin-resistant S. aureus isolates in this study seemed to be community acquired rather than hospital acquired.

Horse/Human MRSA Transmission

Link: Entrez PubMed.

         There are increasing reports of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infection and colonization in horses and evidence that MRSA can be transmitted between horses and humans. The objective of this study was to investigate reports of skin infection in personnel working with a foal with community-associated MRSA colonization and subsequent infection. Clinical diagnostic specimens were collected from individuals reporting skin lesions following contact with the affected foal. Nasal and groin screening swabs were collected from other veterinary personnel that attended a voluntary screening clinic. MRSA skin infections were identified in three neonatal intensive care unit personnel. Nasal colonization was subsequently identified in 10/103 (9.7%) other veterinary hospital personnel. Isolates were indistinguishable by pulsed field gel electrophoresis, classified as Canadian epidemic MRSA-5, possessed SCCmecIV, were negative for the Panton-Valentine leukocidin and were multidrug resistant. Transmission to veterinary personnel despite short-term contact with standard protective barriers highlights the potential importance of MRSA as an emerging zoonotic pathogen, and indicates that further evaluation of interspecies transmission of MRSA and means to prevent zoonotic infection are required.

MRSA: An Emerging Pathogen in Small Animals

Link: Entrez PubMed.

       Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is an important nosocomial pathogen in humans and is increasingly implicated in community-associated infections in people. In household pets, MRSA infections are uncommon but are on the rise, possibly because of the increased prevalence of human MRSA in the community. Clinical MRSA infections in some animals can be life threatening and difficult to treat; however, other animals may develop mild disease or only become colonized. Veterinarians should be aware of the concerns regarding MRSA and should develop an understanding of appropriate disease surveillance, diagnostic testing, and infection control in order to lessen the impact of MRSA on small animals.

Emergence of MRSA infections in horses

Link: Emergence of MRSA infections in horses in a veterinary hospital: strain characterisation and comparison with MRSA from humans.

        Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) has become an emerging public health problem worldwide, no longer only associated with healthcare-associated infections. With the exception of some recent reports concerning infections in cats, dogs and horses, infections with MRSA in companion animals have been infrequently reported. Here we submit findings for MRSA infections in horses in a central European university veterinary hospital. Introduction Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) has become a worldwide public health problem [1,2]. Increasing prevalence of healthcare-associated MRSA infections is usually associated with a wide dissemination of particular epidemic clonal lineages of the S. aureus population [3]. Since the late 1990s, MRSA has emerged in many countries as a cause of invasive skin infections in the community, independently from the healthcare setting [4-8]. In this context, colonisation and infections with MRSA in domestic animals are of particular interest with regard to a mutual dissemination between humans and animals. The first communication on MRSA infections in domestic animals concerned mastitis cases in dairy cows in Belgium in 1972 [9]. Since that time there have been reports of sporadic cases of infection with MRSA in a variety of other domestic animal species such as horses, chickens, dogs and cats [10-13]. MRSA infections in horses associated with wide dissemination of a particular clonal lineage have been recently documented in Canada [14,15]. Here we report on emergence of MRSA in a university veterinary hospital and on an assessment of the relation of human and animal MRSA isolates by means of molecular typing. This includes SmaI macrorestriction patterns, multilocus sequence typing (MLST) for assessing the core genome of S. aureus and characterisation of SCCmec elements of which at least 5 different groups have so far been described [16]. SCCmec (staphylococcal cassette chromosome mec) elements contain the mecA gene that codes for methicillin resistance [17].

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MRSA Characteristics in Cats and Dogs

Link: Entrez PubMed.

     Methicillin-resistant staphylococci (MRS) pose a challenge to clinicians and health administrators in human medicine, but MRS infections in cats and dogs are not perceived as a problem in veterinary medicine. Ten methicillin-resistant staphylococcal isolates obtained from healthy and diseased cats and dogs were subjected to partial DNA sequencing of the mecA gene. Sequence analysis shows that MRS isolates from both healthy and diseased cats and dogs can harbor the mecA gene. The mecA genes of animal isolates were identical to that found in human MRS strains, and therefore the possibility of zoonotic transfer must be considered.

The Bella Moss Foundation in the USA

Link: The Bella Moss Foundation@ the Co-OpWorld Community Expos.

The innovative web site of the new American branch of the Bella Moss Foundation can be found at the link above