Felicia Lamb's ariticle review

McKenna Maryn. (2009). A New Strain of Drug-Resistant Staph Infection Found in U.S. Pigs. Scientific America. October 7th 2010. www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=new-drug-resistant-mrsa-in-pigs

"A New Strain of Drug-Resistant Staph Infection Found in U.S. Pigs"

Methocillin Resistant Staphlococcus aureus (MRSA) strain ST398 originated in Europe in the 1980s, and has now been found in the Netherlands, Canada and the United States. Demonstrating its agility to move not only thoughout continents, but also throughout the world. The strain ST398 is carried in the snout of pigs. In a study performed in Iowa and Illinois on seven swine farm operations, 79% of the 209 pigs tested carried the strain in their snouts and 14 workers were also found to be carrying the strain. Although, this was the first time testing for ST398 has ever been done, conclusions as to ST398’s arrival in the U.S. and how prevalent it is cannot be determined yet. Speculations have been that movement of livestock from farm to farm is the cause of the spread, and another hypothesis is that the spread is a “de nova acquisition of resistance on the farm.”(McKenna, 2009)

On a second set of swine farms in Iowa, pigs and humans did not carry ST398, but since the discovery of ST398 in Ontario researchers are anticipating its arrival into American pig farms and workers.

In 2000 the staph infections in the Netherlands was 1%. Four years later the rate has risen to 30% in their hospitals. The risk for infection is highest among the staff/workers on swine farms.

There are two different types of MRSA, hospital-acquired strain, and community-acquired strain. ST398 is considered a community acquired strain of MRSA, but in a hospital setting it is highly isolated to prevent infection in surgical patients. If ST398 does infect a patient in the hospital post-operatively, it would change the status from a community acquired infection to a hospital-acquired infection.

This article touches lightly on some known details about MRSA and its ability to spread quickly; also that pigs in particular, tend to be a reservoir for the disease, and as a result many of the workers on the swine farms. New information is the ability of MRSA ST398 to spread so easily from continent to continent. Within a continent where the food source is from the local swine farms it is reasonable to assume that MRSA would spread throughout the continent. However when first discovered in Europe it only took a short time for it to be found in Ontario, and then later in the United States. The ability of ST398 to be able to move quickly from farm to farm and then to humans is new information within the last 20 years. This information will be applied to what is known about the bacteria in not only treatment, but also prevention.

The largest contribution to my paper from this article will be mostly in background of ST398, and its agility to travel quickly. Also the specific statistics that are given in the article are supportive to show how quickly ST398 has traveled from pigs to humans. This article will be used in the overall project to reference the background of ST398, and help give proof as to why I agree with the give information with the supportive statistics.

I don’t think this article led to further research. The end referenced more statistics on the death rates MRSA has on Americans, but did not mention much on recommended future research.