Methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus in equine: An emerging disease

Methicillin resistant staphylococcus aureus infection can represent a hazard for equine health, and supports the opinion that inappropriate administration of antimicrobials and hospitalization/surgery represent risk factors for MRSA colonization and infection in horses. Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus was first isolated in 1960. Equine MRSA infection is an important emerging zoonotic and veterinary disease. Usually colonizes in the anterior nares, skin and mucous membrane and causes infection in immunocompromised patients. MRSA is of two types: hospital associated MRSA or community associated MRSA. Considering antimicrobial therapy of animals infected with MRSA, the risk for further development of resistance in the infecting strain needs to be considered. The choice of the antimicrobial should always be based on susceptibility testing. Many equine MRSA are still susceptible to commonly used ‘routine’ antimicrobials. Diagnosis can be done by isolation, disc diffusion test, cefoxitin disk screen test, latex agglutination test, etc. For the detection of mecA (methicillin resistance) and femA (S. aureus specific) genes, a multiplex PCR performed using primers.