I haven’t written about raw diets lately (beyond risks from H5N1 influenza, particularly in cats), but that doesn’t mean the risks from these diets have gone away, and they are still really popular in some areas, and some messages are worth repeating.
Potential problems with raw diets for dogs and cats include infections (e.g. Salmonella
We partnered with the Canadian Academy of Veterinary Dermatology to update our MRSP fact sheets for pet owners, including a new look, and a French translation! Access them using the links below, or on the Worms & Germs Resources – Pets page.
What is methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus pseudintermedius? (English)
Qu’est-ce que le Staphylococcus pseudintermedius résistant à
Here’s a pot pourri of reports of staphylococcal infections in humans linked to dogs. Specifically, they’re infections caused by Staphylococcus pseudintermedius, a common dog-adapted species of Staphylococcus. (If you get freaked out reading these, make sure you read the end of the post so you also get the context.)
A recent presentation at ECCMID (European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases) in Amsterdam described a series of linezolid-resistant enterococci in dogs and cats in the UK. I’m only able to get information from media reports, so details are limited (and potentially lost in translation); however, it’s an interesting story. It’s
A new Clinical Consensus Guideline, coordinated through the World Association for Veterinary Dermatology, has been released: Recommendations for approaches to methicillin-resistant staphylococcal infections of small animals: diagnosis, therapeutic considerations and preventative measures. Clinical Consensus Guidelines of the World Association for Veterinary Dermatology
This large and comprehensive document is open access and can also be
Dr. Stephen Page, regular supplier of good material, sent me a couple papers from the Quarterly Journal of Medicine the other day. One’s an interesting report of ‘Staphylococcus intermedius’ infection in a person, in a case report entitled ‘A canine bug in a human heart’ (Koci et al, Q J Med 2015;108:337-338).
It’s
Well, "news" perhaps isn’t the best description since we’ve been seeing it for a while, but a paper in an upcoming edition of the Journal of Clinical Microbiology (Gold et al. 2014) entitled "Amikacin resistance in Staphylococcus pseudintermedius isolated from dogs" provides published support for the trend we’ve been seeing.
Staphylococcus pseudintermedius is
Issues about infectious disease risks from the pretty much totally unregulated importation of dogs continue to rise, and I’m dealing with them in one way or another almost daily at the moment. I’ll stay away from the discussion of what we are and aren’t (mostly the latter) doing in Canada, since I’ve covered that before
I’m getting ready for next week’s ASM/ESCMID conference on methicillin-resistant staphylococci in animals, for which I’m involved in a plenary session about critically important antibiotics in companion animals. The whole area of antibiotics and animals in complex and controversial (and made worse by political agendas, lack of evidence and confusion about different issues).
Anyway
This is an increasingly common question, as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus pseudintermedius (MRSP – essentially the canine version of the high-profile human "superbug" MRSA) has expanded greatly in the canine population. As more dogs get MRSP infections and even more become inapparent carriers of this bug, more dogs that are carriers will need surgery (both elective and
