Study Shows Healthy Dogs and Cats Can Transmit Dangerous Microbes to Humans – And Vice Versa - SciTechDaily

Healthy dogs and cats may be transmitting multidrug-resistant organisms (MDROs) to their hospitalized owners, while humans could also be passing these microbes to their pets, according to research that will be presented at the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases.

Healthy dogs and cats could be passing on multidrug-resistant organisms (MDROs; bacteria that resist treatment with more than one antibiotic) to their hospitalized owners, and likewise, humans could be transmitting these dangerous microbes to their pets, according to new research being presented at this year’s European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) in Copenhagen, Denmark (April 15-18).

“However, we identified only a handful of cases suggesting that neither cat nor dog ownership is an important risk factor for multidrug-resistant organism colonization in hospital patients.”

In this case control study, researchers wanted to find out whether pets (ie, cats and dogs) play a role in the infection of hospital patients with MDROs.

This is an observational study and cannot prove that close contact with pets causes colonization with MDROs, but only suggest the possibility of co-carriage, while the direction of transfer is unclear.

Finally, the study results apply to the setting of hospital patients in an urban area and therefore may not be applicable to the general population or MDRO high-risk groups like livestock farmers.