I only have to scroll through a few posts on Facebook or
Instagram to see a friend or relative posting a picture…albeit a cute
picture…of someone snuggling, kissing, or cuddling an animal.
Coming from a farming background, I will warn
you, I have many like-minded friends and relatives who believe that cows,
horses, sheep, goats, pigs and even chickens are meant to be snuggled.
Horses I can completely understand. Chickens
and stinky
billy
goats
, I’m not too sure about!
From a Public Health perspective, antibiotic resistant
organisms (AROs) and the concern with treatment options and adverse patient
outcomes has become a main stay in the media.
The same has been true in the animal health world with concerns of
antibiotic resistance in farm animals.
This joint focus or movement over the concern of the impact antibiotic
resistance in humans and farm animals has been aptly named One Health. Perhaps we need to change our focus from farm
animals to the animals we call pets that share our houses, our beds and
sometimes the occasional lick of our ice cream cones?
In recent years there have been several studies looking at
this topic. The primary question being
asked is if humans and pets can share drug-resistant bacteria? In 2014, a study out of the United
Kingdom showed that humans and companion animals "readily exchange and
share" isolates from the same strain after analyzing different strains of
methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in cats and
dogs. Just last week, researchers in
China, who found
that a pet shop worker, along with four dogs and two cats, were infected
with a strain of Escherichia
coli bacteria carrying the MCR-1 gene. As highlighted in this study, since E. coli carrying the MCR-1 gene appears
to be easily spread and as it’s not yet curable, we now have more avenues for
transmission.
Based
on past studies, researchers believed that people may be infected by the food
they eat — specifically animal products.
Now we need to consider what infections we may get as a result of the
pets we keep! I do caution that before
we kick our pets to the curb, the truth is that although there is a possibility
of disease transmission, the risk is low.
Low enough in fact that the risk is often considered to be outweighed by
the benefits of pet ownership. According
to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to
Animals (ASPCA), somewhere between
37% and 47% of all US households own a pet. For some pet owners, the relationship is a
close one and such intimate relationships with our pets does increase the
chance that some of these resistant bacteria can move back and forth between
them and us.
Bugging
Off!
Nicole
