Drug-resistant superbugs ‘could be passed to humans by their pets’

HEALTHY cats and dogs could be passing on superbugs to their owners, research suggests.

A study of 2,800 hospital patients suggests pets could be passing on drugresistant organisms. Around 30 per cent of patients tested positive for such bugs. All 626 pet owners were asked to send samples from their pets. Of these, 15 per cent of dogs and 5 per cent of cats tested positive for a superbug.

In four of the cases, the bugs were the same species and showing the same antibiotic resistance in pets and owners.

Whole genome sequencing only identified one pair as genetically identical in a dog and an owner, with the matching pathogen identified as a type of E coli. Scientists presenting the research at the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases in Denmark, said the findings suggest that multi-drug resistant organisms can be passed on from pets.

However, they stressed the study was observational – meaning it could not prove the bugs were being spread from one species to another, nor that the infection did not start with the patients.

The fact that only a handful of cases was identified suggests neither cat nor dog ownership is an important risk factor for causing the spread of infection among their owners, they said.

The study is by Dr Carolin Hackmann and colleagues from Charité University Hospital, Berlin, Germany. Dr Hackmann said: “Our findings verify that the sharing of multidrug-resistant organisms (MDROs) between companion animals and their owners is possible.”

The role of pets as potential reservoirs of MDROs is a growing concern worldwide. Antimicrobial resistance happens when infection-causing microbes (such as bacteria, viruses or fungi) become resistant to drugs designed to kill them. Estimates suggest antimicrobial resistant infections caused almost 1.3million deaths globally in 2019.

Dr Hackmann said: “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.”