A study published Wednesday in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases claims that a novel form of Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) can spread to humans through consumption of undercooked poultry or mishandling of the raw product.
The researchers reviewed the national database at Statens Serum Institut in Copenhagen and found 10 people living in urban areas of Denmark that had been colonized or hospitalized with MRSA. According to the study, researchers found:
- Ten Danes living in cities were colonized or infected with a novel strain of poultry-associated MRSA, a type of livestock-associated MRSA never identified before. None of the 10 people had worked on farms or had direct exposure to food animals.
- The strain of poultry-associated MRSA identified in the study was not found in Danish livestock but could be traced to poultry meat imported from other European Union countries, including France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands.
- Isolates of the new strain found in the urban-dwelling Danes were virtually identical to each other, a finding that suggests they were all exposed from a common source — most likely contaminated poultry meat.
“At present, meat products represent only a minor transmission route for MRSA to humans, but our findings nevertheless underscore the importance of reducing the use of antibiotics in food-producing animals as well as continuing surveillance of the animal-food-human interface,” said Robert Skov, MD, the lead researcher at Statens Serum Institut, in a press release.
NCC Senior Vice President of Scientific and Regulatory Affairs Ashley Peterson, Ph.D., responded to the study by saying:
“According to the CDC, all U.S. outbreaks of community-associated MRSA infections have been traced to conditions that facilitate human-human transmission, e.g. healthcare facilities, hospitals, locker rooms, etc. The health agency has concluded in the past that there is no documented role for meat consumption or handling in MRSA transmission.
“Further, this is an extremely small sample size of 10 Danish people, the poultry mentioned in the report was not of U.S. origin and the researchers did not definitively link MRSA infection to poultry consumption.
“That being said, we agree with the researchers about the importance of reducing the use of antibiotics in food-producing animals for growth promotion. We all have a role to play – including doctors, farmers and food producers – in preserving the effectiveness of antibiotics, both in humans and animals. The National Chicken Council believes medically important antibiotics should only be used on the farm to treat and prevent disease – not administered to promote growth. In fact, many poultry producers are far ahead of the December 2016 deadline to end the use of antibiotics that are important to human medicine for growth promotion.
“One thing consumers should remember is that all bacteria potentially found on raw poultry, or any raw meat, regardless of strain or resistance profile, is fully destroyed by handling the product properly and cooking it to the proper internal temperature, which in the case of chicken is 165°F.”
The multi-center study, Evidence for human adaptation and Foodborne Transmission of Livestock-Associated Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus, was led by researchers at the Milken Institute SPH, the Statens Serum Institute in Copenhagen, Denmark and the Translational Genomics Research Institute in Flagstaff, AZ. Funding for this study was provided by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health.
