Campaigners today call for urgent tests on the UK's farm animals after the emergence of a new strain of MRSA which has spread rapidly among farmers in Europe, causing an array of serious infections.
The drug-resistant bug is thought to have arisen in pigs fed antibiotics to protect them against farm-borne diseases and boost their growth. The emergence of the new strain backs up fears voiced by some experts that the heavy use of antibiotics in farm animals could lead to a drug-resistant bug capable of infecting humans.
The strain of staphylococcus aureus, known as ST398, is resistant to commonly used antibiotics and has caused skin infections and rare heart and bone infections in patients in the Netherlands, Denmark, Belgium and Germany.
A report published today by the organic farming organisation, the Soil Association, says the superbug represents a new threat to human health. It urged the government to introduce immediate screening of national livestock and strict testing of imported meat products and animals from affected regions, to prevent the superbug spreading to Britain. The report reveals the swift spread of the new MRSA strain, which tested positive in 39% of pigs at nine abattoirs in the Netherlands last year. A further survey identified the strain in 13% of Dutch calves.
Medical officials found that 50% of Dutch farmers were carriers of the strain, a prevalence 1,500 times higher than the rest of the population. In one pig farming region 80% of all MRSA cases are now caused by the farm animal strain. A survey by the Dutch food and consumer product safety authority last year found traces of the bug in 20% of pork meat, 21% of chicken meat and 3% of beef.
"It's going to get to the UK sooner or later, but the government is doing nothing to look for it," said Richard Young, a co-author of the report. "We should be doing routine surveillance on imported meat and imported live chicks."
The document also recommends a screening programme for farmers coming from European countries before they work with live animals.
"It's a new strain we should be looking for here," said Mark Enright, an expert in MRSA at Imperial College, London. "The excessive use of antibiotics is always a bad idea. If you do that for long enough, inevitably one of the strains that emerges will be good at causing disease in humans."
The new strain was first detected two years ago in the Netherlands.
A Defra spokesman said the government had commissioned research into the spread of the infection among animals. "There is no consensus on whether animals became infected from other animals or humans, therefore the identification of MRSA in animals cannot be conclusively linked to the use of antibiotics in animals."
