Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) has proven to be an ongoing problem in human medicine and an emerging issue in animals. The organism is a serious threat to human and animal health because of its resistance to multiple drugs.

The November 1, 2007 issue of the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association (JAVMA, Vol 231, No. 9, pp XX-XX) reported on a cluster of MRSA colonization in a small animal intensive care unit. In this case the MRSA was initially identified from a non-symptomatic Golden Retriever. A decrease in MRSA was seen after infection control measures were employed in the intensive care unit. The article concludes that MRSA may potentially be controlled by preventing ongoing transmission of the agent. In this case infection control was obtained by identifying and isolating the source of the MRSA.

The JAVMA article estimates that in one year’s time (1999-2000) more the 125,000 human hospitalizations were due to MRSA. Now that MRSA has been documented in both humans and animals it warrants our immediate attention because of its ability to spread without detection.

For more information see: http://avmajournals.avma.org/doi/abs/10.2460/javma.231.9.1361