Question
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what reports he has received of MRSA infections in domesticated farm animals.
Answer
[holding answer 9 July 2007]: Methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) was first reported to have been isolated from animals in Europe in 1972 and over the subsequent years there have been a limited number of other reports from various parts of the world. Some early reports of MRSA in animals in the scientific literature did not use molecular or other appropriate techniques to confirm definitively the identity of the suspect MRSA organisms and these reports may not be comparable with current reports.MRSA has been recovered from a number of different animal species and from a number of different parts of the world. The animal species involved include dogs (USA, Korea and the Netherlands), pigs (Netherlands, Denmark and Germany), horses (USA and Japan), dairy cows and chickens (Korea) and cats (Brazil). The scientific papers describing the detection of MRSA in animals from these (and some other countries; the list is not exhaustive) are readily available in the scientific literature.In the UK, since 1999, published reports have indicated that MRSA has been isolated from a small number of companion animals and from horses. There have been no reports of MRSA from food-producing animals in the UK. The current UK position relating to MRSA in animals has also been summarised on the DEFRA website and has been available for some time.