New MRSA strain found in Finland

[Shiloh]

Source: http://www.eht-forum.org/news.html?fileId=news100924065642&from=home&id=0

Friday 24 September 2010
New MRSA strain found in Finland
Drug-resistant bug may be circulating in Finnish communities, nationwide surveillance suggests


The first cases of infection with the CC398 strain of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in Finland were reported online this week in Emerging Infectious Diseases. The strain, also known as ST398, has previously only been seen in a handful of countries.

Finland?s first human case was a veterinarian worker who contracted the bug while working to control an outbreak of CC398 MRSA in horses in 2007. Since then, surveillance has detected nine further cases of infection in people who have had no direct contact with each other or animals that carry the bug.

?These findings may indicate unrecognized community transmission,? write Saara Salmenlinna, from the Finnish National Institute for Health and Welfare in Helsinki, and colleagues.

CC398 MRSA was first detected in pigs and a pig farmer six years ago in France...

 

[Gert van der Hoek]

Re: New MRSA strain found in Finland

This strain is not new, but seems to be new to Finland.

This antibiotic resistant bacteria is related to the pig industry, isolated for the first time in the Netherlands, 2003.

This "pig MRSA" used to be regarded as more or less harmless for humans, it was not virulent in people.

However some serious human cases were reported recently, scientist fear the pig MRSA will turn more virulent .