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Pets can carry MRSA infections

Infection Control Monitor, March 14, 2008

Healthcare professionals treating patients who are having recurrent staph infections might want to consider this possible link in the chain of infection: the family pet. The March 13 New England Journal of Medicine reports on the case of a German woman who had recurrent infections from a strain of drug-resistant MRSA, which finally was cured after the family's cat was tested and treated.

The otherwise healthy woman had recurrent multiple deep abscesses, according to the report. Nasal and other swabs showed her husband and two children carried the MRSA germ on their skin, but had no signs of infection. While they were treated and tested free of the MRSA germ, the woman was still infected. Attention then turned to the family's three apparently healthy cats and screening showed one of the animals tested positive for MRSA. Four weeks after the cat was treated with antibiotics, the woman was also free of MRSA, the study said.

While this case documented transmission of MRSA between a person and a cat, the researchers said there is also evidence that companion animals, mainly dogs, harbor MRSA and can transmit the germ to family members.  "We conclude that pets should be considered as possible household reservoirs of MRSA that can cause infection or reinfection in humans," wrote the authors of the study. To read the study, click here.

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