Meticillin‐resistant strains of Staphylococcus pseudintermedius in companion animals

Abstract

often appears to be associated with postsurgical wound infections, the great majority of MRSP isolates I see are in dogs and cats with skin problems, often following prolonged courses of antimicrobial therapy. In a letter to Veterinary Record (May 5, 2007, vol 160, pp 635-636), I and a colleague suggested that MRSP may pose a greater challenge to the control of opportunistic infection in animals than MRSA, and this would appear to be the case, not least because of the wider spectrum of antimicrobial resistance displayed by MRSP (Steen and Webb 2010). In that same letter, we also suggested that, should there be zoonotic transmission of MRSP to people, then the associated public health issues may be greater than those of MRSA, for reasons of drug resistance. Cases of potential zoonotic transmission are now in the literature (Stegmann and others 2010). In 2006, when I first began to collate data on the incidence of meticillin-resistant staphylococcal isolates in samples submitted from companion animals for bacterial culture and sensitivity, almost all of these were strains of MRSA, 100 per cent of which were recovered from post-surgical wound infection sites. In that same year I saw very few cases of MRSP. Between

Increasing antimicrobial resistance in clinical isolates ofStaphylococcus intermediusgroup bacteria and emergence of MRSP in the UK

“…The years of initial identification (2007 by NWL and 2009 by the RVC) are broadly in line with the phenotypically suspected MRSP emergence from 2007 onwards described by Steen (Steen 2011) and are only slightly later than the first isolations reported from continental Europe (Loeffler and others 2007). Since MRSP has previously been shown to be highly clonal with only few lineages so far having acquired mecA (Solyman and others 2013), these findings favour a relatively rapid spread of MRSP between countries, either through travelling pets or via contaminated humans or fomites.…”

“…In 2011, a letter to the Veterinary Record mentioned the isolation of meticillin‐resistant Staphylococcus pseudintermedius (MRSP) from samples submitted to a UK veterinary diagnostic laboratory over the preceding years (Steen 2011). Since then, one mecA ‐positive S. pseudintermedius isolate from a UK dog of an otherwise unknown origin was included in a genetic population analysis in 2007 (Bannoehr and others 2007) and, most recently, a further 20 MRSP were reported from 391 S. pseudintermedius isolates (5 per cent) submitted to a veterinary diagnostic laboratory in the North East of England (Maluping and others 2014).…”

Results of urinary bacterial cultures and antibiotic susceptibility testing of dogs and cats in the UK

“…Studies can overestimate the prevalence of antibiotic resistance because they are often biased towards more serious cases (e.g. recurrent UTIs, patients that do not respond to empirical therapy) which are also more likely to be antibiotic resistant (Steen 2011). A lower prevalence of E. coli resistance to ampicillin (approximately 20%) was observed in a recent pan-European study of UTI isolates from cats and dogs not recently exposed to antibiotics (Moyaert et al 2017).…”

“…Overall, 36.9% of E. coli isolates from canine samples and 39.4% from feline samples were resistant to ampicillin. It is usually recommended that an antibiotic should not be used in the empirical treatment of UTIs if resistance rates exceed 10% to 20% among the most common uropathogens due to an increased risk of poor patient outcomes (Steen 2011 ). Our results suggest that ampicillin might not be a good antibiotic choice for the empirical treatment of canine and feline UTIs in the UK; however, they should be interpreted with caution.…”

Methicillin-ResistantStaphylococcus pseudintermediusin Rats

“…One veterinary laboratory noted a 272% increase in MRSP cases from 2007–2008 through 2010–2011 ( 5 ). As with methicillin-resistant S. aureus , MRSP resistance is conferred by the mecA gene, making MRSP resistant to all β-lactam antimicrobial drugs and some other antimicrobial drug classes ( 1 ).…”