Screaming headline!
Healthy dogs and cats could be passing on multidrug-resistant organisms to hospitalised owners.
However, the researchers stressed that the risk of cross-infection is currently low.
As usual with these reports, but most will just remember the headline, and they know it.
Pet owners were asked to send swab samples of their pets and more than 300 did so.
Well, there you have it! These 300 are idiots.
Of these samples, 15% of dogs and 5% of cats tested positive for at least one MDRO. In four cases, these microbes were found to be of the same species and showed the same antibiotic resistance between pets and their owners.
Four cases. Four! And when you dig deeper, it isn't even four...
Whole genome sequencing confirmed that only one of the matching pairs were genetically identical in a dog and its owner.
Statistically insignificant. But no, these people have an agenda and they aren't going to let that stop them...
“Although the level of sharing between hospital patients and their pets in our study is very low, carriers can shed bacteria into their environment for months, and they can be a source of infection for other more vulnerable people in hospital such as those with a weak immune system and the very young or old,” says Hackmann.
I think Fido and Tiddles will have to go some to beat the NHS in that regard, eh?
