Some of the strains of MRSA do contain enterotoxins and if carried by food workers tthere is a risk of contamination.

Hi Peter,

MRSA has been considered primarily a health- care-associated pathogen, causing invasive disease in which multidrug resistance poses a substantial challenge to successful treatment. However, food has been implicated as a source of spread in one outbreak of blood and wound infections in hospitalized immunocompromised patients.

You can check data from this refer:

- Kluytmans J, Leeuwen WV, Goessens W, Hollis R, Messer S, Herwaldt L, et al. Food-initiated outbreak of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus analyzed by pheno- and genotyping. J Clin Microbiol 1995;33:1121-8.

Yours

Ihab

MRSA usually is present in raw meat, as S. aureus is not a good grower in presence of competitors, it will never reach high numbers. Moreover, transmission in the kitchen is very small due to the low numbers. Normal kitchen hygiene will do.

Best regards,

Rijkelt Beumer

MRSA is a multiresistant to antibiotics and can be cause food poisoning if it carry one or more enterotoxins type. MRSA present in food i.g. dairy products, meat and through cross contamination during kitchen processing of recipe.

Thankyou all for your helpful comments!

Staphylococcus aureus meticillin resistant have no selective ecological advantage neither among food handers nor in food matrices. The usage of antibiotics in veterinary industry can help as a selection force but once the bacteria is out of the animal loose such advantage.

The issue of Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) as an emerging Public

Health concern was considered. MRSA is known for causing pyoderma and other soft tissue

infections via cuts, wounds and tissue abrasions. MRSA colonizes the skin, nasopharyngeal

cavities and other sites of both humans and animals possibly without evidence of infection. The

Committee recognizes MRSA has been isolated from raw beef in the United States (Table 2) and

Europe.5 As ingestion is not a recognized pathway for MRSA infections, MRSA is not a

relevant microorganism to be included in raw beef purchase specifications.

Table 2. Isolation of S. aureus and MRSA from retail ground beef samples.

n positive, n (%) MRSA positive, n (%) Sampling Location Reference

156 32 (20.5) 2 (1.3) Detroit, MI Bhargava et al. 20117

29 2 (6.9) 0 Iowa Hanson et al. 20118

198 55 (28) 0 Washington, DC Kelman et al. 20116

30 6 (20) 1 (3.3) Baton Rouge, LA Pu et al. 20099

38 14 (37) 1 (2.6) Chicago IL, Washington DC, Fort Lauderdale FL,

Los Angeles CA, Flagstaff AZ

Waters et al. 201110

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA) is a type of staph bacteria that is resistant to certain antibiotics called beta-lactams. These antibiotics include methicillin and other more common antibiotics such as oxacillin, penicillin, and amoxicillin. In the community, most MRSA infections are skin infections. More severe or potentially life-threatening MRSA infections occur most frequently among patients in healthcare settings. While 25% to 30% of people are colonized* in the nose with staph, less than 2% are colonized with MRSA. While MRSA bacteria are usually carried on the human skin and in the nose, recent studies have shown that livestock also carry MRSA, and that it can be transmitted from these animals to farmers and veterinarians, who can then pass it on to other humans. MRSA bacteria have also been shown to be present in retail foods, including pork, beef, and dairy products, although MRSA outbreaks from food contamination are rare.

Can anybody shed light on ST9 please?

Thank you for promoting thought. To my knoledge, S. aureus acts through toxin formed in the food before it is eaten. The issue of MRSA could be considered from what it could be called a statistical point of view. The resistance to antibiotics increases the probability that a food handler is infected with S. aureus and consequently it increases the probability of food contamination if he does not adhere to good sanitary practices.