The objectives of this study were to\u00a0evaluate the prevalence of MRSA colonization in pigs and pig farmers in Ontario, Canada and to characterize MRSA strains.\u00a0Nasal and rectal swabs were collected from 285 pigs from three different age groups from 20 pig farms.\u00a0The prevalence of MRSA colonization in farms\u00a0was 45% (9\/20) whereas the prevalence in pigs was 24.9% (71\/285). There was no difference in MRSA colonization between age\u00a0groups. The prevalence of MRSA colonization in pig farmers was 20% (5\/25). There was a correlation between the presence of\u00a0MRSA in pigs and humans on farms (P value = 0.001). The results of spa typing revealed the predominant strain in pigs and\u00a0humans was eGenomics spa type 539 (Ridom t034, clonal complex 398) which accounted for 59.2% of isolates and has been\u00a0reported in pigs in Europe. A common human epidemic clone, CMRSA-2 (USA100, clonal complex 5) was also found in both\u00a0pigs and pig personnel. Indistinguishable strains were found in pigs and pig personnel on all five farms with a colonized human.\u00a0This study demonstrates that MRSA is common in pigs in Ontario, Canada, and provides further support to concerns about\u00a0transmission of MRSA between pigs and humans. The reasons for the high prevalence of MRSA colonization in pigs both in Canada and in other\u00a0countries remain uncertain. The presence of similar\u00a0strains in pigs and their human contacts, the high\u00a0prevalence of colonization of pig farmers and the possible\u00a0emergence of ST398 strains as a cause of\u00a0clinical infections in humans\u00a0indicates that MRSA in pigs\u00a0may pose a public health risk to human contacts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The objectives of this study were to\u00a0evaluate the prevalence of MRSA colonization in pigs and pig farmers in Ontario, Canada and to characterize MRSA strains.\u00a0Nasal and rectal swabs were collected from 285 pigs from three different age groups from 20 pig farms.\u00a0The prevalence of MRSA colonization in farms\u00a0was 45% (9\/20) whereas the prevalence in pigs […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18120,19],"tags":[26380,14],"class_list":["post-14986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ontario-pork","category-pork-insight-articles","tag-infec","tag-pig"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14986"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14986\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14988,"href":"https:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14986\/revisions\/14988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}