Assessment of the Public Health significance of meticillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in animals and foods 1

Abstract

SUMMARY The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) asked its Panel on Biological Hazards to deliver a scientific opinion on: The assessment of the Public Health significance of meticillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). There are different states of interaction between S. aureus and its host: infections, carriage or colonisation, and contamination. Meticillin resistant S. aureus (MRSA) can be persistently or intermittently carried by healthy humans, and colonisation is the major risk factor for infection. Infection can be mild to severe and, in some instances, fatal. MRSA are now a major cause of hospital acquired infection in many European countries, with large differences in prevalence and control policies. A limited number of lineages of MRSA tend to predominate in specific geographical locations. CC398 is the MRSA lineage most often associated with asymptomatic carriage in intensively reared food-producing animals. MRSA commonly carry enterotoxin genes but there has been only one report of food intoxication due to MRSA. On the question on what is the risk to human health posed by MRSA associated with foodproducing animals, the Panel concluded that: Livestock-associated MRSA (LA-MRSA) represent only a small proportion of the total number of reports of MRSA infections in the EU. However, this proportion differs between Member States. In some countries with low prevalence of human MRSA infection, CC398 is a major contributor to the overall MRSA burden. In countries with high overall human MRSA prevalence, CC398 is considered of less significance for the public health. CC398 has, albeit rarely, been associated with deep-seated infections of skin and soft tissue, pneumonia and septicaemia in humans. Where CC398 prevalence is high in food-producing animals, people in contact with these live animals (especially farmers and veterinarians, and their families) are 1 For citation purposes: Scientific Opinion of the Panel on Biological Hazards on a request from the European Commission on Assessment of the Public Health significance of meticillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in animals and foods. The EFSA Journal (2009) 993, 1-73