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New strain of MRSA shows up in U.K.

There are growing concerns in the United Kingdom over a new strain of MRSA found in some milk samples. Officials tested 1,500 samples of milk from farms and found MRSA ST398 in seven of the samples. The risk to consumers is limited because pasteurization kills the Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA). There is a risk to farmworkers, veterinarians and others who come into contact with the infected animals.

MRSA presents a challenge in that is has shown resistance to antibiotics. Not only is the U.K. infection a new strain, but the infection has shown up in dairy cattle. MRSA is a growing problem in continental Europe but mainly in pigs.

The spread of antibiotic-resistant staphylococcus has prompted calls for the livestock industry to discontinue use of three classes of antibiotics (cephalosporins, fluoroquinolones and macrolides) deemed “critically important to human medicine” by the World Health Organization.