First report of identification of livestock-associated MRSA ST9 in retail meat in England

First report of identification of livestock-associated MRSA ST9 in retail meat in England

V. DHUP,A. M. KEARNS,B. PICHON and H. A. FOSTER (2015).
Epidemiology and Infection, Volume 143, Issue14, October 2015, pp 2989-2992
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?aid=9947180

Abstract

Sixty percent of all meat consumed in the UK is imported from European countries where there have been increasing reports of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) identified in food-producing animals, but rarely from such animals in the UK. Thirty samples each of raw chicken, pork and beef, sourced in England, were collected from retail outlets in Greater Manchester. MRSA was recovered from three chicken samples and one each of pork and beef, all from prepackaged supermarket meat. Four isolates were identified as representatives of the most common human healthcare-associated MRSA clone in the UK [EMRSA-15, spa type t032, belonging to multilocus sequence type clonal complex 22 (MLST-CC22)], suggesting contamination from human source(s) during meat processing. The fifth isolate (from chicken) was multiply-resistant (including oxacillin, ciprofloxacin, erythromycin, clindamycin and tetracycline), identified as ST9-SCCmecIV, spa type t1939 and lacked the immune evasion cluster, a characteristic of livestock-associated strains. This lineage has been identified previously from animals and meat products in Asia and mainland Europe but not the UK.

Typical blue colored MRSA colonies on MRSA ID Agar

One World One Health Concept by the means of Zoonoses and MRSA

In recent years, several major human epidemics had occurred on a pandemic scale. Notable examples include SARS, avian influenza and swine flu, each of which had spread over a number of continents and caused widespread morbidity and mortality. Similar occurrences have been observed in animal populations, to consider foot-and-mouth-disease (FMD) in the United Kingdom, avian influenza in the Netherlands and bluetongue disease in Europe. In each cases, first the pathogens were considered as “exotic” prior to their introduction and spread (DEFRA, 2009).

Influenza pandemic across globe, such a complex scenario creates an arena in which the medical and veterinary disciplines bring distinct, but interrelated, professional skills together to help solve any problems associated with the interaction between  human and animals. The outbreaks of avian influenza are not the first zoonotic infections to show the importance of having a close working relationship between the veterinary and medical officers. The emergence of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans and the possibility that this might be linked to the epidemic of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in cattle highlighted the need to collaborate in assessing the potential threats to human health posed by animal diseases. The chief veterinary and medical officers say, “there is need to collaborate with our chief medical and chief veterinary counterparts in European Union member states and worldwide via the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE), the World Health Organization, and the various expert advisory groups” (Reynolds & Donaldson, 2005).

In 2007, campylobacteriosis was again the most frequently reported zoonotic disease in humans in the European Union with 200,507 reported confirmed cases and most Member States reporting an increased number of cases. Salmonellosis was still the second most commonly recorded zoonoses accounting for 151,995 confirmed human cases’ (EFSA, 2009). There 61% of human infectious diseases are zoonotic, 75% of human EID are zoonotic, 33% of zoonoses are transmissible between humans’ (Taylor et al, 2001).

There can be little doubt that the majority of veterinarians and human health professionals have a basic knowledge about zoonoses and have some theoretical understanding of the threat that they might pose to human health. But it is also apparent that in practice many health workers either fail to consider the possibility that they may be dealing with a zoonoses or ignore the public health implications of these type of infections’ (Cripps, P. J., 2000).

Zoonoses are simply multi-host infections in which one host happens to be human. The humans are still the part of the greater ecosystem’ (Bennett M., 2006). In the Europe, food is thought to be the most common source of zoonotic diseases in public health’ (EFSA, 2009). The importance of zoonotic diseases is well demonstrated by a survey of infectious organisms which showed that, of the 1415 species known to be pathogenic to humans, 61% (868) are zoonotic, while 75% of diseases considered to be ’emerging’ are also zoonotic. It is perhaps worth noting that many of the zoonotic agents causing disease in humans cause little or no obvious clinical disease in their animal hosts’ (Taylor et al, 2001).

Peter J. Cripps (2000) concludes, “The zoonoses must be considered seriously as possible future human communicable diseases, and that ignoring them will pose a threat to public health. Secondly, many zoonoses are able to cause very significant human morbidity and mortality. Amongst these are brucellosis, leptospirosis, salmonellosis, tuberculosis and echinococcosis, and a large number of other bacterial, viral and parasitic infections”. There is also strong evidence to suggest that other communicable diseases, such as influenza, may have originated from non-human animals.

In order to prevent zoonoses from occurring, it is important to identify which animals and foodstuffs are the main sources of infections. For this purpose and to follow the developments on food safety in the European Union, information aimed at protecting human health is collected and analyzed from all European Union Member States. The collected data is published in Community Summary Report on trends and sources of zoonotic agents in European Union in 2007 (EFSA, 2009).

This concept applies to methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infection as well, at present, MRSA is considered as one of the key potential zoonotic pathogens (Epstein & Price, 2009). Staphylococcus aureus had continuously evolved since the discovery of penicillin in 1940 as first resistant strain was discovered in UK hospital in 1960 (Lowy, 2003). MRSA has become an emerging public health problem worldwide, no longer only associated with healthcare-associated infections. With the exception of some recent reports confirming infections in cattle, cats, dogs and horses, infections with MRSA in companion animals have been infrequently reported (Cuny et al., 2006). MRSA have been detected in foods such as bovine milk, cheese, meat products and raw chicken meat (Vanderhaeghen et al., 2010). It was first recognized as zoonosis in the Netherlands (Voss et al., 2005; Cuny et al., 2008) when same strain of MRSA was isolated from the pigs, pig farmers, veterinarian, veterinarian’s son and the nurse who treated veterinarian’s son; all of them were directly or indirectly related to pig farming (Voss et al., 2005). MRSA can be transmitted between people and animals during close contact (Seguin et al., 1999; Weese et al., 2005; Cuny et al., 2006; Weese et al., 2006). There is much more need to monitor MRSA infection. As there are recent reports of USA300 which is untreatable and causing lots of problems and spreading across globe.

References:

Bennet Malcolm (2006) Zoonoses – what on horizon? Presentation at the Zoonoses Training Day on 7^th July 2006.

Cripps, P. J. (2000). “Veterinary education, zoonoses and public health: a personal perspective.” Acta Tropica 76(1): 77-80.

Cuny, C., Kuemmerle, J., Stanek, C., Willey, B., Strommenger, B., & Witte, W. (2006). Emergence of MRSA infections in horses in a veterinary hospital: Strain characterisation and comparison with MRSA from humans. Euro Surveill, 11(1), 44-47.

Cuny, C., Strommenger, B., Witte, W., & Stanek, C. (2008). Clusters of infections in horses with MRSA ST1, ST254, and ST398 in a veterinary hospital. Microbial Drug Resistance, 14(4), 307-310.

Debby Reynolds, Liam Donaldson (2005) UK government collaborations to manage threats to animal and human health. BMJ  2005;331:1216-1217, doi: 10.1136/bmj.331.7527.1216

DEFRA (2009) Data mining for exotic pathogen spread, (Background) http://www.defra.gov.uk/vla/science/sci_phd.htm

EFSA (2009) The Community Summary Report on Trends and Sources of Zoonoses and Zoonotic Agents in the European Union in 2007. The EFSA Journal (2009) 223. http://www.efsa.europa.eu/EFSA/efsa_locale-1178620753812_1211902269834.htm

Lowy, F. (2003). Antimicrobial resistance: the example of Staphylococcus aureus. Journal of Clinical Investigation, 111(9), 1265-1273

Seguin, J. C., Walker, R. D., Caron, J. P., Kloos, W. E., George, C. G., Hollis, R. J., et al. (1999). Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus outbreak in a veterinary teaching hospital: potential human-to-animal transmission. Journal of Clinical Microbiology, 37(5), 1459.

Taylor, L. H., S. M. Latham, et al. (2001). “Risk factors for human disease emergence.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences 356(1411): 983-989.

Vanderhaeghen, W., Hermans, K., Haesebrouck, F., & Butaye, P. (2010). Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in food production animals. Epidemiology and infection, 138(05), 606-625.

Voss, A., Loeffen, F., Bakker, J., Klaassen, C., & Wulf, M. (2005). Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus in pig farming. 11(12).

Weese, J. S., Archambault, M., Willey, B., Hearn, P., Kreiswirth, B., Said-Salim, B., et al. (2005). Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus in horses and horse personnel, 2000–2002. Emerg Infect Dis, 11(3), 430-435.

Weese, J., Dick, H., Willey, B., McGeer, A., Kreiswirth, B., Innis, B., et al. (2006). Suspected transmission of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus between domestic pets and humans in veterinary clinics and in the household. Veterinary Microbiology, 115(1-3), 148-155.

 

MRSA in British Milk

As my daily routine I was checking my mails and I came across one my old post on Linkedin about MRSA in raw meat. There was a comment about the article in The Independent news paper, who claims themselves as a views-paper! It was about ‘MRSA ‘superbug’ is found in British milk.’ this study was led by Mark Holmes, based at University of Cambridge.
My earlier blog about MRSA, questioned about entry of MRSA in food chain, if yes it has entered food chain then, how and what routes it gains entry. similar questions are raised in this article. Mark Holmes says, “It is still not known for certain if cows are infecting people, or people are infecting cows. This is one of the things we will be looking into next.”

So, in coming blogs I will try to elaborate more on MRSA and its entry in food chain.

Power of Livestock…!!!

Largest population of livestock is available in India. Indian farmer does farming along with livestock industry. When the dam rain abuses farmer, agriculture fails to give profit to the farmer. Then livestock is the only a source for his livelihood and income, which is dependent on joint efforts taken by veterinarian and farmers.

Veterinarians are used to focus only on diagnosis, treatment and cure of a diseased animal. But in coming future, we the veterinarian will have focus to increase the productivity of the livestock, by focusing on two main rules viz., prevention and control of disease. This can be achieved by mass vaccination programmes and also by educating the farmers and milkman’s. By proving the importance of hygienic and better managemental practices to the livestock owners.  Services such as, first aid at doorsteps, information whenever wherever possible, to increase the productivity and to with hold, the place in global market.

This will help a common livestock owner to become a successful livestock industrialist with increasing per capita income of his own and also economy of nation. This will put country in the race of global livestock industry which will increase the living standards of farmer, livestock owner and common man himself. This ultimately will increase the GDP and Economy of India!