Household pets can carry meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) introduced to the home by their human companions. Specific factors promoting pet carriage of this pathogen have not been fully elucidated.
This study evaluated MRSA cultured from pets and the home environment in households where a human infected with MRSA had been identified, and aimed to determine potential risk factors for pet MRSA carriage.
Humans diagnosed with community-associated MRSA (CA-MRSA) skin or soft-tissue infection (SSTI) in the mid-Atlantic United States were identified. One hundred forty-two dogs and cats from 57 affected households were identified of which 134 (94.4%) pets and the household environment were sampled for bacterial culture, PCR confirmation and spa-typing for MRSA strain determination. Samples were obtained 3 months later from 86 pets.
At baseline, 12 (9.0%) pets carried MRSA. Potential risk factors associated with carriage included pet bed (environmental) MRSA contamination, flea infestation and prior antimicrobial use in the pet. Pets tended to carry human-adapted MRSA strains and spa-types of MRSA isolates cultured from pets were concordant with strains cultured from the home environment in seven of eight homes (87.5%) at baseline.
Results may inform risk-based veterinary clinical recommendations and provide evidence for selective pet testing as a possible alternative to early removal of pets from the homes of humans infected with MRSA. MRSA contamination of the home environment is likely an important risk factor for pet MRSA carriage, and household interventions should be considered to reduce risk of MRSA carriage in exposed pets.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 9. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 12 June 2024.
All research outputs
#5,587,544
of 33,738,238 outputs
Outputs from Veterinary Dermatology
#162
of 1,379 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#81,116
of 466,298 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Veterinary Dermatology
#4
of 17 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 33,738,238 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done well and is in the 83rd percentile: it's in the top 25% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 1,379 research outputs from this source. They receive a mean Attention Score of 4.7. This one has done well, scoring higher than 88% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 466,298 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done well, scoring higher than 82% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 17 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done well, scoring higher than 76% of its contemporaries.
