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17 March, 2010 |
MRSA bug discovered in meat and livestock
A superbug similar to the MRSA which affects thousands of hospital patients has been found in farm animals and meat.
The bug, which can be passed on to humans and spread by them, is thought to be the product of intensive farming and the use of antibiotics to protect livestock.
Like many food bugs, it can be killed by cooking and it is normally dangerous only to those already fighting another illness. However, like hospital MRSA, its resistance to antibiotics means that it is difficult to treat once an infection has developed.
The bug has been discovered by researchers in the Netherlands, Denmark and other European states in pigs, chicken and dairy cows. Britain imports thousands of tons of fresh meat from Europe.
It is also believed that it is present here on farms which raise animals in near identical conditions to those on the Continent.
Once it is in the human population it lives inside the nose, which means it can be spread through sneezing or contact.
A small study by Kingston University in South-West London appears to have found strains of the bug in one out of 50 samples of pork and one of 100 samples of chicken. Tests to establish the exact identity of these bacteria have yet to be completed.
Farm animal MRSA is thought to have developed as a result of the widespread use of antibiotics on livestock.
It has mutated to become immune to the effects of these antibiotics. The Soil Association, the organic farming pressure group, claims to have lifted the lid on it following a pan-European investigation involving academics and politicians.
The scale of the problem was revealed in a letter from the Dutch public health minister Dr Cees Veerman to MPs in Holland.
In what he calls a "worrying development" he said that farm animal MRSA was found in 40 per cent of pigs as well as some dairy cows and 13 per cent of calves.
The bug has also been found in food during a small number of tests carried out last year - in 20 per cent of raw pork samples, 3 per cent of raw beef and 21 per cent of raw chicken. As many as 23 per cent of Dutch pig farmers are carriers of the same bug.
It is feared that a new form of MRSA - Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus - in raw meat could pose a far greater risk to the general population than the hospital variant.
Inquiries into the problem have begun in the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, France, Sweden and Belgium.
However, the UK's farming and food safety departments have carried out only very limited tests for its presence in livestock - and none at all in meat or among farmers.
Helen Browning of the Soil Association said: "We call on the Government to test both live animals and imported meat as a matter of urgency. It is already clear that farm animal MRSA could spread to the UK."
Experts say thorough cooking and washing hands after handling raw meat should offer protection. Dr Mark Enright of Imperial College, London, said: "My major concern would be if farmers were to contract this and pass it on to the general population.
"MRSA in itself is not life-threatening except in cases where people are ill for other reasons, where there immune systems are compromised."
Farms ministry Defra said: "No cases of MRSA have been recorded in food-producing animals in the UK. Defra keeps the surveillance of MRSA under active review."
The Food Standards Agency said: "We are keeping a watching brief on developments across Europe."
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23401789-details/MRSA+bug+discovered+in+meat+and+livestock/article.do
http://www.rivm.nl/earss/Images/EARSS%202005_tcm61-34899.pdf
Link to website EARSS , The European Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance System http://www.rivm.nl/earss/
At that time this was said:
- MRSA is dangerous inside hospitals , not outside
- may be pig farmers and pigworkers should be treated seperately in hospitals
Published online 2006 November 10. doi: 10.1186/1476-0711-5-26.
Community-acquired MRSA and pig-farming
Background
Sporadic cases of CA-MRSA in persons without risk-factors for MRSA carriage are increasing.
Case presentation
We report a MRSA cluster among family members of a pig-farmer, his co-workers and his pigs. Initially a young mother was seen with mastitis due to MRSA. Six months later her baby daughter was admitted to the hospital with pneumococcal otitis.
After staying five days in hospital, the baby was found to be MRSA positive. At that point it was decided to look for a possible source, such as other family members and house-hold animals, including pigs on the farm, since those were reported as a possible source of MRSA earlier.
Swabs were taken from the throat and nares of family members and co-
workers. A veterinarian obtained swabs from the nares, throat and perineum of 10 pigs. Swabs were cultured following a national protocol to detect MRSA that included the use of an enrichment broth. Animal and human strains were characterized by PFGE, spa-typing, MLST analysis, SSCmec, AGR typing, and the detection for PVL, LukM, and TSST toxin genes.
Three family members, three co-workers, and 8 of the 10 pigs were MRSA positive. With the exception of the initial case (the mother) all persons were solely colonized, with no signs of clinical infections.
After digestion with SmaI, none of the strains showed any bands using PFGE. All isolates belonged to spa type t108 and ST398.
Conclusion
1. This report clearly shows clonal spread and transmission between humans and pigs in the Netherlands.
2. MLST sequence type 398 might be of international importance as pig-MRSA, since this type was shown earlier to be present in epidemiologically unrelated French pigs and pig-farmers.
3. Research is needed to evaluate whether this is a local problem or a new source of MRSA, that puts the until now successful Search and Destroy policy of the Netherlands at risk.
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1654169
By Ahmed ElAmin
25/06/2007 - Retail meat from pigs, chickens and other livestock could be infected with a "superbug" strain of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), according to a UK study released today.
The prospect of MRSA in the food chain could spark off another consumer reaction against meat products, already suffering from a bad perception due to past outbreaks of bird flu, food-and-mouth disease and bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE).
In the Netherlands, the MRSA strain has been found in 20 per cent of pork, 21 per cent of chicken and 3 per cent of beef on sale to the public, the UK's Soil Association stated in the study.
'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," said Richard Young, a policy adviser to the Soil Association.
The association warned that MRSA found in farm animals have already transferred to farmers, farm-workers and their families in the Netherlands, causing serious health impacts.
About 40 per cent of pigs and 50 per cent of pig farmers in the Netherlands have been found to carry farm-animal MRSA, the Soil Association stated.
Dutch scientists and government officials blame the MRSA new strain in farm animals on the high levels of antibiotics used in intensive livestock farming, according to the association.
Despite an EU-wide ban on growth-promoting antibiotics added to animal feed, similar quantities of antibiotics are simply being prescribed by vets for disease prevention, the association stated.
"It has not yet been found in UK livestock or meat products, but neither the government nor the Food Standards Agency are carrying out any surveys of the most likely carriers, live pigs, chickens and imported meat," the Soil Association warned.
The Soil Association has called on the UK government to begin such a testing programme for MRSA on retail meat and begin reducing the use of veterinary antibiotics - including banning advertising of all such products to farmers.
Government should also immediately prohibit the prophylactic and off-label use of all antibiotics on farms that are defined as "critically important" in human medicine by the World Health Organisation, the association stated.
In addition all farm workers and vets coming into the UK from countries where farm-animal MRSA has been found should be screened for the pathogen, the association stated.
MRSA is already a high-profile, persistent problem in many UK hospitals under the country's National Health Service (NHS).
"This is no time for official complacency, but a critical opportunity to prevent farm-animal MRSA getting a hold in the UK - so reducing risks to human health, costs to the NHS, already burdened by hospital-acquired MRSA, and avoiding another potentially devastating food-safety crisis," said Young.
http://www.foodproductiondaily.com/news/ng.asp?n=77618-mrsa-bse-soil-association
Pig’s MRSA on a poultry farm?
In the Netherlands we are confronted with MRSA in pig farming. Other stock farms might also be a source of MRSA.
We found 5 adults living on a chicken farm to be MRSA positive. We were also able to culture MRSA in chicken droppings.
Chicken farms in the Netherlands might be a source of MRSA.
article in Dutch: http://www.rivm.nl/infectieziektenbulletin/bul1802/veld_varkens_mrsa.html
Comment: I suppose in other countries you can find the same potential problem; look and you will find; If you don´t look, you don´t have a problem..
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