Community-associated methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus in horses and humans who work with horses

Abstract

Results confirm a reservoir of colonized horses on a variety of farms in Ontario and New York and provide evidence that 1 MRSA strain is predominantly involved in MRSA colonization in horses and humans that work with horses.

Evolution of Multidrug-ResistantStaphylococcus aureusInfections in Horses and Colonized Personnel in an Equine Clinic Between 2005 and 2010

“…35,38,41 Our study supports the notion that humans play a role in the introduction and transmission of multidrug-resistant S. aureus within a clinic. It is, therefore, necessary to stop the transmission between personnel and patients using gloves and hand disinfectants, as hands are considered a major transmission vehicle for MRSA.…”

“…Colonized veterinary personnel can potentially transmit MRSA to humans or to their equine patients and can contaminate materials. 4,35,41 MRSA was detected in rooms where veterinary students and staff member gather. 30,38 Hand hygiene is considered to be one of the most important infection-control tools in human medicine 28 and has also been shown to limit the number of infections with MRSA in equine clinics.…”

Antibiotic Resistance in the Environment, with Particular Reference to MRSA

“…The isolation of MRSA from two horses in Canada led to a larger study which revealed the colonisation of 79 hospitalised horses and also of 27 people involved in caring for these animals, strongly suggestive of frequent transmission between horses and humans (Weese et al, 2005b). All isolates in the study were from nasal swabs and belonged to the Canadian community associated strain C-MRSA5, which is uncommon in humans.…”

“…MRSA has also been identified as an emerging disease in horses (Weese et al, 2005a;Weese et al, 2005b;Weese et al, 2006), which might act as a reservoir of rare strains for transmission to humans (Baptiste et al, 2005). The isolation of MRSA from two horses in Canada led to a larger study which revealed the colonisation of 79 hospitalised horses and also of 27 people involved in caring for these animals, strongly suggestive of frequent transmission between horses and humans (Weese et al, 2005b).…”

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus in horses and horse personnel: An investigation of several outbreaks

“…However, the number of reports on MRSA colonization and infections in horses is increasing and they are now also associated with private practices and the community (Weese and van Duijkeren, 2009). The prevalence of MRSA colonization published so far varied between 0% and 4.7% on horse farms in Europe, Canada and Veterinary Microbiology xxx (2009) xxx-xxx North America (Busscher et al, 2006;Baptiste et al, 2005;Vengust et al, 2006;Weese et al, 2005), between 2.9% and 10.9% in horses admitted to equine clinics Van den Eede et al, 2009) and 16% in horses in an equine hospital (Baptiste et al, 2005). In hospitalized horses, surgical site infections predominate, whereas joint, incision and skin/soft tissue infections are most common in community-onset infections (Weese and van Duijkeren, 2009).…”