Researchers at the Charité University Hospital in Berlin say that domestic dogs and cats can transmit antibiotic-resistant bacteria to people, although it is very rare.
The discovery, made from samples of nasal and rectal swabs from 2,891 hospitalized people and 400 pets, was presented last Saturday (18/3), during the European Congress of Infectious Diseases and Clinical Microbiologyin Copenhagen, Denmark.
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In addition to sample collection, study participants were asked regarding known risk factors for multidrug-resistant organisms (MDROs), such as recent infection or antibiotic use, hospital stays, number of pets in the household, proximity of contact, and health. from him.
The researchers focused on the most common superbugs found in hospitalized patients, such as Staphylococcus aureus methicillin-resistant (MRSA), Enterococos vancomycin resistant (VRE), enterobacterales 3rd generation cephalosporin resistant (3GCRE) and enterobacterales carbapenem-resistant (CRE), which are resistant to multiple antibiotics, including penicillin and cephalosporins.
risk level
In all, 871 patients (30%) tested positive for the presence of microorganisms – 93 had dogs at home and 80 cats, the rest did not have pets. In this group, only four cases of transmission of the pathogen between humans and pets were identified. About 13% of those who tested negative for the bacteria had dogs and another 13% had cats.
Among animals, only 15% of dogs and 5% of cats tested positive for at least one bacteria. In four cases, the multidrug-resistant organisms found in pets and their owners were of the same species and showed the same resistance to antibiotics.
“Our findings confirm that sharing of multidrug-resistant organisms between companion animals and their owners is possible. However, we identified only a few cases suggesting that neither cat nor dog ownership is an important risk factor.”
It was not clear whether the transmission of bacteria occurs from animals to humans or the other way around. The researchers point out that the observational study also cannot prove that close contact causes the colonization of superbugs.
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