Drug-Resistant Staph Infections in Europe Could Mark Start of a New Epidemic
This is definitely a more serious problem than Geert Wilders’ Obssession with Muslim immigrants.
A relatively new type of drug-resistant Staphylococcus aureus could represent the world’s next bacterial epidemic, an environmental health expert said here today at a conference for science writers.
The superbug, called methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus strain 398, or MRSA ST398, was first identified in an infant in the Netherlands in 1994 and traced back to her family’s pigs. Now, researchers are starting to see more serious infections and some of the cases reveal no direct link to livestock, said Lance B. Price, director of the Center for Microbiomics and Human Health at The Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen), in Flagstaff.
“The rate of human [ST398] infections is going up in Denmark and the Netherlands,” Price said. “We are just looking at the beginning of an epidemic.” Price made his comments during a presentation at the 49th annual New Horizons in Science meeting, organized by the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing.
The mechanism for transmission in these newer ST398 cases currently is unknown. Researchers are considering various explanations including human-to-human exposure, contaminated meat or changes in the organism that make it spread more easily, Price said. Already, ST398 was recently found in about half of the pigs and farmers tested in Iowa.