Humans and companion animals like dogs and cats carry a shared population of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus bacteria, according to a study recently published in mBio, the journal of the American Society for Microbiology.
Researchers sequenced genomes of 46 MRSA samples from cats and dogs over a four-year period in the United Kingdom. Nearly all the samples were genetically similar to strains found in humans and showed that the bacteria in the animals were likely to have originated in humans.
According to senior author Mark Holmes, senior lecturer in preventive veterinary medicine at the University of Cambridge in England, the study "furthers the 'one health' view of infectious diseases that the pathogens infecting both humans and animals are intrinsically linked, and provides evidence that antibiotic usage in animal medicine is shaping the population of a major human pathogen."
However, "there is very little risk of owners getting ill from their pets," he concluded.
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