MRSA st398 Danish female pig worker infects her child

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The MRSA st398 situation in Denmark covered in previous reports gets ever more serious. 

Now we have details of female farm workers becoming infected and, in one case, the mother taking it home to infect her one year old son. 

We are not taking about unnamed victims in scientific reports but full news reports including photographs of the victims and the identities of the farms.

The situation for veterinarians, many nowadays women, and pig farm workers everywhere gets ever more difficult and unresolved.

There is no reason to think that the position in Denmark is worse than in other western countries. They have just been more open and truthful.

This is a selection of quotes from a mechanical translation of the transcript of a radio programme in Danish.

Read the story here

Pig bacterium

PIG BACTERIA While hospitals are fighting a fierce battle against multi-resistant bacteria, so bacteria will not be fought with ordinary penicillin allowed to spread freely in agriculture.

It tells P1 Documentary, which together with Åbenhedstinget.dk has uncovered problems with resistant bacteria that migrate from pigs to humans....

...The multi-drug resistant swine bacterium was first detected in Denmark in 2006. The bacteria live in the pig's snout and on its skin, and its spread in livestock agree dust when pigs sneeze and move around.

Doubling of infected people

Last year authorities registered 39 Danes infected with MRSA CC 398th In the first 9 months of 2010, is the special pig bacterium according Statens Serum Institut registered in 55 Danes. Continuing spread of infection in the same pace the rest of the year, it will mean a doubling of infected people in 2010.

it may be the tip of the iceberg, the resistant bacteria are detected typically only when the wearer gets a wound that can not be whole with common antibiotics.

Infection must be stopped 

One of the leading researchers in staphylococci, a professor of microbiology and Dr. Hans Jørn Kolmos from Odense University Hospital, is surprised that neither the authorities or agriculture has done nothing to eliminate the problematic bacteria in the stables:

We now have a couple of years called for research showing how widespread this problem is in Danish piggeries. But it has not been studied. Perhaps it is because once you have defined the problem, then you also have to do something about it.

Hans Jørn Kolmos think the authorities should tackle the source of infection before the problem grows even bigger:

. - The most problematic is that the bacterium is not in the pig barn.. Pops it up in the hospital it can go badly wrong, with serious wound infections in the course of an operation.. We have seen several examples.

Gav pig infection on to her baby

. P1 Documentary can talk about 1-year-old Casper from Hjørring who were infected with multidrug-resistant bacteria from swine, though he had never set foot in a piggery.

The source of infection was his mother Naja forest that suited the infected pigs.

Naja forest came first even of the infection when she changed jobs to a farm outside MRSA.

Louise Jensen was also infected through her work with pigs. She is surprised that she is treated like a plague hit the hospital.

. - Every time a nurse or doctor would come to me, they donned coveralls and long gloves. They should have plastic over his shoes and masks.

Back in the pig barn was the only change that she should wash their hands often and dry hands on paper instead of towels.

Spread freely from farm to farm

Neither the authorities or agriculture itself detects which farms, the infected pigs came from. Therefore, it is virtually impossible for farmers to keep infection out or to clean up his yard by getting new MRSA-free pigs in.

It tells the farmer Niels Jacobsen, who are themselves infected with swine bacterium, as are those of his staff on their daily walk in the barn....

...Swine Producers have told both the veterinarian and Labour that he has MRSA on the farm. But no authorities gave him specific instructions on this occasion, as his pigs freely sold to other farms....

No help from politicians

Minister for Food, Agriculture and Fisheries, Henrik Hoegh (V), is concerned that the bacterium spreads But he will not stop trade than MRSA-infected pigs or require screening here and now.

The problem is that nobody can guarantee me that you can go and take tests for crews and by 100 percent say that the crew here is not MRSA, says Henrik Hoegh to P1 Documentary...

...As long as MRSA is not detected, it has no economic consequences for the individual farmer. animals are not more frequently ill than other pigs and the meat sold at the same price per kilo as non-infected animals.

Treatment does not pay 

It is possible for infected people to get rid of the bacteria with very intense antibiotics and washes from skin and nose.

But the treatments do not help the staff at MRS-infected farms, because the infection recurs, once they are back in the barn .

The resistant bacteria are caused by agricultural high antibiotic consumption. ...