Abstract

Livestock-associated Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus: A Great Threat to Public Health

Authors: Muhammad Altaf, Nasir Iqbal, Abdul Qayyum, Muhammad Taslim Ghori, Khalid Mehmood, Sadaqat Ali, Muhammad Zahid, Amir Iftikhar Malik, Zubair Luqman, Muhammad Muneeb and Md Salman Mostafa

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.71081/cvj/2025.036

Abstract
The emergence of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) globally is a public health/antimicrobial resistance issue both in humans and animals. Staphylococcus aureus is mainly a human pathogen its animal strains originated from humans by changing in genetic variations and host specificity. It is an important cause of human infections and a highly contagious pathogen in dairy animals. MRSA became prominent almost 50 years ago as a causative agent of nosocomial infections, meanwhile, it also became a causative agent for community infections and mastitis in dairy animals. Literature review shows the importance, reports, and prevalence of livestock-associated MRSA (LA-MRSA) from mastitis milk of cattle and goat. MRSA usually multiplies and colonizes in animals, particularly in livestock. Nowadays, LA-MRSA is an emerging issue posing to great zoonotic threat to public health and increasing treatment costs in animals. Goat milk is mainly used by poor rural families and by infants who cannot feed their mother milk. Consumption of milk having MRSA will be transmitted to humans and young ones that will become resistant to all beta-lactam antibiotics leading to public health problems. Mastitis in dairy animals caused by MRSA should be properly diagnosed and treated so that the transmission of this zoonotic pathogen can be avoided.

Keywords: Dairy, Livestock, Methicillin, Public health, Resistance, Staphylococcus