Livestock Density as Risk Factor for Livestock-associated Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus, the Netherlands - - Emerging Infectious Disease journal - CDC

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Livestock Density as Risk Factor for Livestock-associated Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus, the Netherlands - - Emerging Infectious Disease journal - CDC



Table of Contents
Volume 18, Number 11–November 2012

Research

Livestock Density as Risk Factor for Livestock-associated Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus, the Netherlands

Article Contents

• Methods
• Results
• Discussion
• Acknowledgment
• References
• Figure 1
• Figure 2
• Figure 3
• Table 1
• Table 2
• Table 3
• Table 4
• Suggested Citation

Beth J. Feingold , Ellen K. Silbergeld, Frank C. Curriero, Brigite A.G.L. van Cleef, Max E.O.C. Heck, and Jan A.J.W. Kluytmans

Author affiliations: Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland, USA (B.J. Feingold, E.K. Silbergeld, F.C. Curriero); National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, Bilthoven, the Netherlands (B.A.G.L. van Cleef, M.E.O.C. Heck); and Amphia Hospital, Breda, the Netherlands; and VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam, the Netherlands (B.A.G.L. van Cleef, J.A.J.W. Kluytmans)

Suggested citation for this article

Abstract

To determine whether persons living in areas of high animal density are at increased risk for carrying livestock-associated methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (LA-MRSA), we used an existing dataset of persons in the Netherlands with LA-MRSA carriage and controls who carried other types of MRSA. Results of running univariate and multivariate logistic regression models indicated that living in livestock-dense areas increases the odds of nasal carriage of LA-MRSA. We found that doubling pig, cattle, and veal calf densities per municipality increased the odds of LA-MRSA carriage over carriage of other types of MRSA by 24.7% (95% CI 0.9%–54.2%), 76.9% (95% CI 11.3%–81.3%), and 24.1% (95% CI 5.5%–45.9%), respectively, after adjusting for direct animal contact, living in a rural area, and the probable source of MRSA carriage. Controlling the spread of LA-MRSA thus requires giving attention to community members in animal-dense regions who are unaffiliated with livestock farming.

Staphylococcus aureus is a zoonotic and human pathogen that can cause a range of health outcomes in humans from minor to life-threatening infections of the skin, bloodstream, respiratory system, urinary tract, and surgical sites (1). An increasing proportion of S. aureus infections involve drug-resistant strains, including methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) (2). In 2007, 171,200 MRSA infections occurred in European Union member states plus Iceland and Norway, resulting in 1,050,000 extra days spent in the hospital (3) This translates into excessive hospital inpatient and outpatient costs because of the need to isolate patients and because patients require longer stays and more extensive treatments (3). In 2005 in the United States, an estimated 94,000 MRSA infections resulted in >18,000 deaths (4).
MRSA has, in the past, been largely associated with hospitals and other healthcare facilities, but since 2000, the majority of MRSA infections in most countries are acquired in the community outside of healthcare settings (5,6). These strains of community-acquired MRSA are vital public health concerns, but less is known of their origins and routes of transmission. Among these strains of community-acquired MRSA, livestock-associated (LA) strains have been detected in several regions of the world (7).
Originally, the LA-MRSA strain studied here was denoted as nontypeable MRSA because of the inability to type it by using standard methods of pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (8). It was first detected in the Netherlands in 2003 (9) and, as of 2010, accounts for >40% of the MRSA cases in that country (10). LA-MRSA has now been identified largely as a single clonal complex on the basis of multilocus sequence typing (ST398), and this clonal complex has a demonstrated association with pigs, cows, and other animals (11,12), although other clonal complexes have also been shown to be associated with livestock as well. In several European countries, increased risks of carriage have been reported in persons in contact with pigs and veal calves, including farmers, veterinarians, and slaughterhouse workers (13,14). In the Netherlands, among these occupational groups, the prevalence of ST398 carriage is roughly 42% (15), whereas the prevalence of any strain of MRSA in the general population is <1 a="a" href="http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/18/11/11-1850_article.htm#r16" title="16">16
). The emergence and transmission of LA-MRSA among humans and animals (such as poultry, horses, companion animals, pigs, and cattle) have recently been reviewed (17). Most epidemiologic studies have focuses on identifying individual and farm level characteristics associated with LA-MRSA carriage and on studying those in direct contact with livestock. In 1 study among pig farmers and their household members, 30% were carriers of MRSA ST398, and the risk for carriage was related to direct exposure to pigs (15). A study among veterinarian field workers found that after short-term occupational exposure to pigs, 17% of them carried MRSA. However, >90% of those lost this carriage the next day (18). Another study found a clear association between carriage and the duration of contact with veal calves and that carriage was strongly reduced after a period of absence from animal contact (11,19). These studies, which indicate a high risk for carriage from livestock contact but little persistence of carriage after interruption of animal contact, bring into question the ability of LA-MRSA to spread into the population. Only 1 study examined the role of living in a livestock-dense region as a risk factor as well but did not find it to be a risk factor (20). This study used a random mailing in the 3 most pig-dense municipalities in the Netherlands. Of the 534 adult respondents without livestock contact, 1 person was positive for MRSA (0.2%), compared with 13 of 49 persons who worked or lived on a livestock farm (26.5%).
In 2007, risk factors for LA-MRSA carriage in the Netherlands were investigated by van Loo and colleagues (8). They found that risk factors for increased odds of LA-MRSA carriage included contact with livestock, acquiring MRSA through known risk factors such as travel to a foreign country or recent interaction with the healthcare environment, and living in a rural area. Our study, conducted during 2008–2011, built upon this work to test the hypothesis that persons living in areas of high pig density may be at increased risk for carrying LA-MRSA. We did this by combining information about where persons lived and what the livestock density was in these areas for which existing information on risk factors had been determined in the 2007 study.