MRSA Bugs In Hospitals - Livestock Implicated

Monday, November 3, 2014 - 14:50 in Health & Medicine

A recent study has found that some Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bugs in United Kingdom hospitals can be traced back to a type of bacteria found in farm animals. A strain of drug-resistant bacteria carried by some livestock –Staphylococcus aureus CC398 – has also been found in patients.  People and animals generally harbor distinct variants of CC398, which the team say evolved from the same original bacteria. However, the CC398 strain found in livestock can be transmitted to humans, and the study shows that this has happened on many occasions. It provides new evidence that the livestock-associated CC398 strain could spread in hospitals, including those with newborn babies. read more

Read the whole article on

More from

Latest Science Newsletter

Get the latest and most popular science news articles of the week in your Inbox! It's free!

Check out our next project, Biology.Net