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Abstract

Background

Carriage of multidrug-resistant organisms (MDROs) in humans constitutes an important public health concern. Cross-transmission of bacteria between animals and humans has been demonstrated before.

Aim

Our aim was to quantify the risk factor ‘pet ownership’ for MDRO colonisation in hospital patients.

Methods

We performed a matched case–control study from 2019 to 2022 in Berlin, Germany and compared MDRO-positive and MDRO-negative patients in terms of contact with pets and other risk factors for MDRO acquisition. Patients completed a questionnaire-based interview and provided nasal and rectal swabs. Pet owners provided swab samples from the throat and stool of their pets (dogs and cats). Phenotypically matching samples of owners and pets were analysed via whole genome sequencing.

Results

The analyses included 2,891 patients. Reported pet ownership was 17.7% in MDRO-positives (154/871) and 23.4% in MDRO-negatives (472/2,020). Among 397 owner–pet pairs, we identified one pair sharing genotypically indistinguishable pathogens (0.3%). A risk factor analysis of pet ownership was performed for carriers of meticillin-resistant (MRSA) (OR = 0.662; 95% CI: 0.343–1.277), vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE) (OR = 0.764; 95% CI: 0.522–1.118) and multidrug-resistant Gram-negative bacteria (MDR-GNB) (OR = 0.819; 95% CI: 0.620–1.082). Colonisation with MDRO was rare in pets, and dogs were more often colonised than cats (MRSA: 0% vs 0%, VRE: 1.5% vs 1.0%, MDR-GNB: 17.2% vs 3.6%).

Conclusion

Transmission of MDROs between humans and pets is possible though rare. In an urban living space, neither cat nor dog ownership appears as a relevant risk factor for MDRO carriage in hospital patients.

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/content/10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2024.29.39.2300714
2024-09-26
2024-10-14
http://instance.metastore.ingenta.com/content/10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2024.29.39.2300714
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