This report from Spain is really more of the same fleshing out the detail, which simply makes the British black hole of information about porcine MRSA in Britain's pigs ever more disgraceful.
Britain's corrupt government veterinarians are not going to talk or lie their way out of this one.
They have just had to admit, with much fluster and bluster that they went over the top in culling animals during the disasterous Foot and Mouth epidemic in 2001.
Outside experts tried to tell them they had got it wrong and merely collected rudeness and arrogance from veterinary civil servants in return.
They will have to answer for their actions and inaction in respect of MRSA in due course.
Foot and Mouth culls merely mean cruelty on a vast scale and a huge bill for the taxpayer, MRSA is potentially rather more sinister for human health, not least pig farmers.
Abstact here
Sunday, May 08, 2011
12:30 – 13:30
MRSA in animals
Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus isolated from swine and farm workers in Spain
C. Potel-Alvarellos, L. Constenla-Carames, A. Moreno-Flores, C. Lopez-Coton, E. Comesaña-Da-Vila, L. Eiroa-De-La-Puente, S. Perez-Castro, M. Alvarez-Fernandez* (Vigo, Pontevedra, ES)
Objectives: To determine the prevalence and molecular characteristics of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) colonization among swine and related workers.
Methods: The nares of 197 swine and 8 workers from four production systems comprising 2,900 live pigs were sampled. The swabs were cultured on CNA and MRSA selective agar (bioMerieux).
S. aureus strains were identified by the tube coagulase test. MRSA was confirmed by cefoxitin and oxacillin disk diffusion test. The MRSA strains were characterized by pulsed field electrophoresis (PFGE) using EagI restriction enzyme, spa typing, and multilocus sequence typing (MLST). PCR was used to determine the SCCmec type and the presence of the mec and the pvl genes.
Results: The swine ages were 3 (n= 28, MRSA 21.4%), 8 (n=45, MRSA 26.6%), 12 (n=10, MRSA 30%), 16 (n=75, none MRSA), and 24 (n= 25, MRSA 8%) weeks. Additionally 14 adult sows were studied being the MRSA prevalence 14.3%.
A total of 25 (12.7%) MRSA isolates were recovered from swine and 6 (75%) MRSA were recovered from workers.
All the strains were ST398. The only SCCmec identified was type V. The most common spa-type among pigs was t011 (84%), and it was the only spa-type identified among workers (100%). The t1451 spa-type was identified in the remainder of the pigs (16%), all of them belonged to the same farm and were SCCmec V positive. PFGE classified the t011 strains in four types. The workers were colonized by the same PFGE types than the related animals except in one case. All the strains were pvl negative.
Conclusions: The results showed that the colonization of swine by MRSA is common, being the nasal colonization among workers very frequent.
PFGE results showed diversity within the spa t011 strains.
Swine could be an important reservoir for MRSA representing a challenge for human health care systems.
