European Food Safety Authority Report on MRSA in Breeding Pigs

Report of the Task Force on Zoonoses Data Collection on a proposal for technical specifications for a baseline survey on the prevalence of Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in breeding pigs1
calendar icon 14 December 2007
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Summary

Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is known for its impact on public health. Recently, the MRSA clonal complex ST398 has been reported to occur in pigs and several other animal species. Several Member States are undertaking studies to understand better the impact of these findings.

The Task Force on Zoonoses Data Collection was asked by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) to provide recommendations on the necessity to survey the occurrence of MRSA in animals. The Task Force recommends that in addition to national studies it is important to undertake a common survey at European Community level, in particular to understand and quantify the spread of MRSA in some farm animals throughout the EU as well as the relevance of different strains to understand whether there is a clonal spread.

The Task Force proposes to combine such a survey to the forth coming Salmonella baseline survey in breeding pigs. The survey will focus on breeding pigs, but it is proposed to sample for MRSA also the premises of fattening pigs, if present on the breeding pig holdings. The inclusion of fattening pigs will be useful to examine the transfer of MRSA within the holding, but it will not provide a representative estimate of the prevalence of MRSA in fattening pigs in the country.

This report describes the technical specifications for the MRSA survey including the sampling techniques and analytical methods.

Further Reading

- You can view the full report by clicking here.



Footnotes

[1] For citation purposes: Report of the Task Force on Zoonoses Data Collection on a proposal for technical specifications for a baseline survey on the prevalence of Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in breeding pigs, The EFSA Journal (2007) 129, 1-14.

December 2007

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