Importation of European pigs with MRSA must be prevented
- From: Pat Gardiner <pat.gardiner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 21 Jul 2009 21:32:42 +0100
Pat's Note: I have dug out the Soil Association Press Release
selectively quoted by the NPA today.
This release is deficient in two areas in my view:
It does not mention imports of live breeding pigs. They exist and pose
risks.
It suggests that we do not know if MRSA is present in British pigs. We
do. Steve McOrist a prominent British pig specialist blew the story at
an Irish Pig conference in Ireland earlier this year. The archives of
the newsgroup uk.business.agriculture or my blog
http://animal-epidemics.blogspot.com/ have the details
The Soil Association add to my knowledge in claiming that the Germans
have experienced their first human death from MRSA st398 - "The first
confirmed human death from this pig MRSA was recently reported in
Germany"
Their continued interest is to be welcomed.
http://www.soilassociation.org/News/NewsItem/tabid/91/smid/463/ArticleID/85/reftab/57/t/Importation-of-European-pigs-with-MRSA-must-be-prevented/Default.aspx
Importation of European pigs with MRSA must be prevented
20 July 2009
The Soil Association is supporting calls from the National Pig
Association (NPA) to stop the importation of live piglets from
Belgium. It is particularly concerned that they would introduce a new
strain of MRSA into the UK which would have economic consequences for
pig producers and make it much more difficult to control the problem
of MRSA, particularly in the community.
In 2007, a Soil Association report revealed that 39% of Dutch pigs
were contaminated with a new strain of MRSA, called MRSA ST398, which
can be transmitted to humans. [1] Since then, MRSA has become
widespread in pigs in many other European countries, including
Belgium. This has been encouraged by the fact that the Netherlands
exports about 6 million live pigs a year to other continental European
countries. [2]
The UK is fortunate, in that it does not currently import significant
numbers of live pigs from the continent, and its pig herd may
therefore be free of MRSA. Government scientists completed MRSA
testing of British pigs last December, but the Government has so far
failed to release the results, despite requests from the Soil
Association. [3]
According to the NPA, there are strong rumours that a shipment of
'weaner' pigs is due from Belgium any day now. The reason why some UK
dealers want to import weaner pigs from the continent is because they
are almost half the price of British weaners and large profits could
be made. [4]
However, research commissioned by the Belgian government has shown
that 44% of Belgian pigs and 38% of Belgian pig farmers are already
carriers of MRSA. [5] So the importation of live pigs from Belgium
would almost certainly introduce the superbug to the British pig herd
if it is not already present.
In Britain, just three cases of MRSA ST398 are known to have occurred
in humans, but in the Netherlands the strain already accounts for
about 30% of all human MRSA infections. [6] The first confirmed human
death from this pig MRSA was recently reported in Germany. [7]
Richard Young, Policy Adviser to the Soil Association, said:
"MRSA is now a major problem in the pig industries of most European
countries. We still don't know what the situation is in the UK,
because the Government is sitting on the results of its testing
programme.
"If British pigs are free of MRSA, then it beggars belief that
Ministers would be willing to allow the importation of pigs from
countries like Belgium, where pig MRSA is known to be widespread.
"On the other hand, if British pigs are already affected by MRSA, then
the Government should come clean about this and take urgent action to
minimise any further spread of the superbug."
The spread of MRSA ST398 to British farms would cause two new
problems. The vast numbers of animals kept on factory farms means that
a major new reservoir of MRSA would develop, greatly increasing the
number of MRSA infections in the community, and the number of people
with community-acquired MRSA that would need to go into hospital for
treatment, because ST398 often requires the use of different
antibiotics from existing strains and treatment usually has to be
started before it is known which strain of MRSA is involved. [8]
The European Food Standards Agency and the European Medicines
Evaluation Agency have concluded that high antibiotic consumption in
intensive farming is a driving force in the emergence and spread of
farm-animal MRSA. They have called for reductions in the routine use
of antibiotics on farms and have said that herd or flock medication is
a particular problem. [9]
Richard Young added:
"The Soil Association has been calling for greater regulation of
antibiotic use on farms for many years. It's good news that European
authorities are now finally beginning to realise that the continuing
reliance on routine antibiotic usage on factory farms poses a serious
threat to human health, but it is now time for the British Government
to get this message and actually do something about it."
For more information please contact Richard Young: 01386 858 235 /
ryoung@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Notes to editors:
[1] Nunan C. and Young R., 2007. MRSA in farm animals and meat: a new
threat to human health, Soil Association
http://www.soilassociation.org/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=%2bmWBoFr348s%3d&tabid=385
[2] Pig Progress, 2007. Dutch EU's biggest pig exporter in 2005,
http://www.pigprogress.net/news/dutch-eus-biggest-pig-exporter-in-2005-id357.html
[3] The Soil Association has previously requested the results of the
testing, without success. A Freedom of Information request was
subsequently submitted last month, and an answer is due in the coming
week.
[4] The Pig Site, 2009. NPA Launches Campaign to Keep Out
Weaner-dealers,
http://www.thepigsite.com/swinenews/21585/npa-launches-campaign-to-keep-out-weanerdealers
[5] IVLO, 2008. Activity report 2007, Institute for Agriculture and
Fisheries Research, Merelbeke, Belgium
Denis O. et al., 2008. High prevalence of "livestock-associated"
meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus ST398 in swine and pig
farmers in Belgium, 18th European Congress of Clinical Microbiology
and Infectious Diseases
http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/eccmid18/abstract.asp?id=68412
[6] For the three British cases see:
Edwards G., 2008. HPS Weekly Report,
http://www.documents.hps.scot.nhs.uk/ewr/pdf2008/0823.pdf
For the latest statistics on the incidence of MRSA ST398 in humans in
the Netherlands, see:
Wulf M and Voss A., 2008. MRSA in livestock animals-an epidemic
waiting to happen?, Clinical Microbiology and Infection, vol. 14, pp.
519-21
[7] Cuny C. et al., 2009. Emergence of "animal" MRSA ST398 as
colonizer and as infectious agent in humans, 19th European Congress of
Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ECCMID), May 2009,
http://registration.akm.ch/2009eccmid_einsicht.php?XNABSTRACT_ID=83009&XNSPRACHE_ID=2&XNKONGRESS_ID=94&XNMASKEN_ID=900
[8] For example, MRSA ST398 is nearly always resistant to tetracycline
antibiotics, see:
de Neeling A.J., van den Broek M.J.M., Spalburg E.C., van
Santen-Verheuvel M.G., Dam-Deisz W.D.C., Boshuizen H.C., van de
Giessen A.W., van Duijkeren E. and Huijsdens X.W., 2007. High
prevalence of methicillin resistant Staphylcococcus aureus in pigs,
Veterinary Microbiology, 122: 366-72
However, tetracyclines are the second most widely used class of
antibiotics in human medicine, and government guidelines have
recommended that they should be more widely used for certain types of
MRSA infection because existing strains of MRSA are nearly always
sensitive to tetracyclines. See:
Gemmell C.G., Edwards D.I., Fraise A.P., Gould F.K., Ridgway G.L. and
Warren R.E. on behalf of the Joint Working Party of the British
Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy, Hospital Infection Society and
Infection Control Nurses Association, 2006. Guidelines for the
prophylaxis and treatment of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus
aureus (MRSA) infections in the UK, Journal of Antimicrobial
Chemotherapy, 57: 589-608
[9] ECDC, EFSA and EMEA and, 2009. Joint scientific report of ECDC,
EFSA and EMEA on meticillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in
livestock, companion animals and food,
http://www.efsa.europa.eu/EFSA/Report/biohaz_report_301_joint_mrsa_en.pdf?ssbinary=true
--
Regards
Pat Gardiner
Release the results of testing British pigs for MRSA and C.Diff now!
www.go-self-sufficient.com and http://animal-epidemics.blogspot.com/
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