Pig MRSA found in Poultry

.
ST398 is also found in pigs and people, not least in three Scots.

The information that people had been infected in Scotland was only released after many months had passed.

Informally it is known as "piggy MRSA."

This is the same strain that has been found recently in US pigs, not least as a result of the sterling work done by the American Gary Burkholder in persuading US academics to start taking a close interest in British pig epidemics and their consequences.

Almost alone amongst developed nations, Britain continues to refuse to release the results of testing its pigs for MRSA (or C.Diff. if they have been tested at all.)

They also refuse to release results of testing poultry for some diseases until 2010 even though they admit having the information.

Fuller information can be found by searching for related subjects on the newsgroup uk.business.agriculture using Google Groups. The archive there covers the last decade of animal disease in Britain and elsewhere and includes many reports deliberately removed from the WWW.

The original blog entry giving the matter publicity and acess to further information is here:

http://tahilla.typepad.com/mrsawatch/2008/07/pig-mrsa-found.html