A report suggests that the family feline can carry the drug-resistant germ MRSA, which caused a handful of deaths in young people last year.
Andreas Sing, MD, and colleagues at the Bavarian Food and Health Safety Authority in Germany found that a woman with multiple deep abscesses was infected with a particularly nasty strain of MRSA, known as PVL-positive MRSA (the bacteria contain Panton-Valentine leukocidin genes, which have been linked to potentially life-threatening pneumonia and difficult-to-treat infections).
According to their letter in the New England Journal of Medicine, tests showed that her healthy husband and two children also carried the bacteria (about a third of the population carries regular staphylococcus bacteria in their nose, and 1% carry MRSA without any symptoms).
The entire family was treated with an antibiotic nose cream and rinses, which cured the husband and children (MRSA is tough to treat, but not impossible). However, the woman’s abscesses wouldn’t go away.
Throat cultures showed that one of the three family cats (all were healthy) was also infected; after it was treated too, the woman tested negative for MRSA and her sores went away.
I don’t have a cat, but should those who do worry? Probably not, says Shelley Rankin, PhD, chief of clinical microbiology at the Veterinary Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. She estimates that only about 0.05% of dogs and cats carry MRSA. It’s more likely you’ll pass the germ to your pet.
“This is a human infection that we transmit to companion animals,” she says. If you think you have an MRSA infection, try to avoid touching your pet until you start treatment.
“You can pat them on the head, but you may not go to bed with them,” she says. “Don’t let them lick you.”
Comments (0)