Dogs on raw meat diet could spread E. coli to their owners
THE trend for raw dog food risks spreading drug-resistant E. coli to humans, a study has found.
Raw meat contains drug-resistant bacteria, which fuel superbugs that kill 700,000 British people a year.
The diet is said to be more nutritious, but studies by scientists at Bristol University show dogs given raw meat are more likely to excrete life-threatening strains of E. coli.
E. coli is a widespread bacterium found in the intestines of all humans and animals, said Prof Matthew Avison, the study’s lead author. “It is a common cause of many diseases, including urinary tract infection, and can cause serious illness, including sepsis, if it spreads to other parts of the body.
“Our research adds to the increasing evidence that not feeding raw meat to dogs may help.”
Bacteria can be passed from dogs to humans through everyday interactions. Owners should take extra precautions when handling raw food and be careful to clean up after, the researchers said.
Two analyses, involving 223 puppies and 600 adult dogs, identified links between eating raw meat and excreting antibiotic-resistant E. coli, regardless of age or time spent on the diet.
Raw feeding was found to be a strong risk factor for dogs living in the countryside, though the issue was more complicated for city dwellers because of the variety of lifestyles and exposures.
Owners completed questionnaires about their dogs’ diets and environment and provided faecal samples from them.
Prof Avison added: “Dogs fed raw meat are more likely to carry bacteria resistant to these important medicines. This doesn’t mean that the animal, or the owner, will become sick.”
Last year Portuguese scientists branded uncooked dog food an “international public health risk”. They examined 25 brands and found enterococci, a genus of bacteria commonly found in human intestines, present in more than half the analysed samples.
Superbugs are expected to kill 10 million people annually by 2050 if no action is taken.
The latest British findings were published in One Health and the Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy.