Some germs can spread from healthy cats and dogs to their owners while they’re in the hospital. But it’s not a huge problem since only a few times like this have been reported.
Your pets, like cats and dogs, could be giving you germs that are hard to kill with antibiotics. And people can pass those same germs on to their animals too! Scientists just found this out and are talking about it at the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases in Copenhagen.
Scientists from Charité University Hospital Berlin in Germany conducted a study of over 2800 human patients and their pets. They have concluded that sharing of bacteria that can’t be treated easily with drugs (which is called multidrug-resistant organisms) between pets and humans is possible, but it isn’t a large risk factor. This means that owning a pet does not increase the amount of risk for the germs to spread.
Having pet animals as a possible source of drug-resistant germs is becoming an international concern. This means that the germs causing disease are changing so they can’t be killed by the medicine used to fight them. It’s estimated that in 2019, these antimicrobial-resistant illnesses caused almost 1.3 million deaths and were linked to around 5 million deaths worldwide.
This study wanted to see if cats and dogs have anything to do with someone getting sick in the hospital with an infection called MDROs.
Researchers studied four of the most frequent types of harmful germs found in hospitals—MRSA, VRE, 3GCRE, and CRE. All of these kinds are difficult to treat because they are resistant to several different types of antibiotics, including penicillin and cephalosporins.
From June 2019 to September 2022, samples were taken from 2,891 people at Charité University Hospital Berlin. These were either patients who had already been infected with something or those who weren’t sick when they arrived (1,184 and 1,707 respectively), as well as any dogs or cats living in their houses.
Scientists used genetic sequencing to figure out what kind of bacteria was in each sample, and if the bacteria carried any drug-resistant genes. They also used whole genome sequencing to see if the same drug-resistant bacteria could be found in multiple samples.
The participants in the study were asked about several known risks for getting MDROs, like if they had a recent infection or used antibiotics, stayed in hospital recently or had any urinary or special catheters. They were also asked questions about how many pets they have at home, how close they are to them and how their pet health is.
Out of the total 2,891 hospital patients tested, 871 tested positive for a MDRO and 2,020 tested negative. The rate of people who owned dogs was 11% (93/871) in those who tested positive and 13% (267/2,020) in those who tested negative. Similarly, 9% (80/871) of people who tested positive owned cats while 13% (253/2,020) had cats in those testing negative.
Out of the 626 pet owners, 300 sent in samples from their pets – this was 400 samples altogether. In those tests, 15% of the dogs and 5% of the cats tested positive for something called a MDRO. In 4 special cases where the pet and its owner had matching MDROs (meaning they both had the same species and showed the same resistance to antibiotics).
Scientists did a whole genome sequencing test on a dog and its owner. They discovered that only one of them was genetically the same! The pathogen they found was 3GCR Escherichia coli, which is usually found in healthy people and animal’s stomachs.
“In our study, patients in the hospital don’t share many bacteria with their pets. But, even if it’s for just a few months, these pets can still spread germs and bacteria into the hospital. That might be dangerous for immune-compromised people, like very old or young patients,” says Dr. Hackmann.
This study looked at the possible connection between being around pets and having germs that don’t respond to medicine (MDROs). Unfortunately, this study can’t prove that pet contact is what caused these germs to show up, but it does raise the question. There are a few issues with how the study was done – like maybe not getting accurate results because people were taking samples themselves – so it might not apply all over. This also just worked for hospital patients living in one city, so it might not work for other groups who are more likely to get MDROs like farmers.
