[getsmart-l] MRSA and the Family Cat - report German doctors

[John O'Gorman]

http://www.westmountexaminer.com/article-cp7534012-Trying-to-clear-up-superbug-infections-Check-the-family-cat.html
Trying to clear up superbug infections? Check the family cat 
 Article online since March 12nd 2008,


TORONTO - If your household is plagued by infections of drug-resistant Staph bacteria, give a thought to the family cat, a newly published report suggests. 
Felix the feline may catch more than the odd mouse. German doctors have reported finding a cat infected with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus - better known as MRSA - in this week's issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. 
Researchers from a number of countries, including Canada, have reported finding MRSA in pets or animals that people can come in contact with - cats, dogs, rabbits, horses, even parrots and other exotic birds. 
But most of these reports have appeared in specialty journals for veterinarians and microbiologists - perhaps not standard reading for the average family doctor trying to puzzle out why a patient keeps getting infected with the unpleasant superbug. 
The German doctors, from the Bavarian Food and Health Safety Authority, recounted the case of a woman who had multiple and recurrent skin abscesses that didn't respond to initial antibiotic treatment. 
Investigation showed the infections were caused by MRSA and that her husband and their two children carried the drug-resistant bacteria on their skin or in their nostrils - although in their cases no infections had occurred. 
After using bacterial nasal ointment and antiseptic washes, the husband and children no longer carried the bacteria, but the woman remained MRSA positive, leading investigators to look at the family's three cats. One was carrying MRSA bacteria in its throat. 
The doctors reported that after the cat was treated with the antibiotics ciprofloxacin and rifampin, the problem disappeared - though the family wouldn't allow follow-up testing of the cat, so they couldn't say for sure it no longer carried the bacteria. 
Dr. Scott Weese, an expert in the diseases people and animals can give to each other, applauded the basic message of the report. 
"When you investigate the household, you investigate the whole household," said Weese, a veterinarian and researcher at the Ontario Veterinary College in Guelph, Ont., who has written several scientific articles on this topic. 
"People are definitely infecting their pets and pets are infecting their owners. Most pets that contract MRSA probably got it from a person to start with.... but pets can then send it back." 
But Weese worried about the suggestion the combination of antibiotics may have cured the cat, saying he wouldn't like to see other veterinarians applying the same regimen. 
Those antibiotics haven't been tested as treatment for MRSA in animals, Weese said. In fact, research suggests that most cats and dogs carrying drug-resistant Staph bacteria will get rid of it on their own, without drugs, so long as they aren't reinfected by the people they share a household with. 
"It's possible the antibiotic therapy had absolutely no role," he said of the German case. 
The Canadian guidelines for management of MRSA advise against treating pets for it, he said, noting unnecessary antibiotics could fuel development of drug resistance in other bacteria pets carry. 
The Canadian guidelines instead suggest that people improve household hygiene - washing hands before and after petting the cat or other animals, for instance. 
"We need to remember that a cat is not a small person. And what might be useful in a person isn't necessarily useful or needed in a cat." 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://list.web.net/archives/getsmart-l/attachments/20080320/a8bb51b6/attachment.htm 
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: image/gif
Size: 2419 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://list.web.net/archives/getsmart-l/attachments/20080320/a8bb51b6/attachment.gif