This week I have had quite a few discussions revolving around animals so I thought I would put a spotlight on a couple of stories I have heard recently involving animals and AMR.
 
Montgomery et al recently published a paper looking at an outbreak of multidrug resistant Campylobacter jejuni in the US linked to puppy sales. The CDC initially looked at an outbreak of 6 cases of Campylobacteriosis in Florida linked to a national pet store chain. The CDC then looked back down the supply chain and identified nationally, 118 persons, including 29 pet store employees, in 18 states with illness onset during a 2 year outbreak (January 5, 2016-February 4, 2018). In total, six pet store companies were linked to the outbreak. What was particularly interesting to me was that the outbreak isolates were resistant to all antibiotics commonly used to treat Campylobacter infections, including macrolides and quinolones. Normally Campylobacteriosis is a self-limiting bout of diarrhoea treated by replacement of fluids and electrolytes. Antibiotics are usually necessary if there are have severe symptoms, including high fever, bloody diarrhoea, an underlying illness that weakens the immune system or Campylobacter bacteria has been identified in the blood. The implication being that with this outbreak there would have been treatment failures with potentially fatal consequences. Store record reviews revealed that among 149 investigated puppies, 142 (95%) had received one or more courses of antibiotics. This outbreak demonstrates that antimicrobial use in the commercial dog and other pet animal industries might be another underappreciated source of drug resistant infections.
 
Finally, the US CDC had to issue a rather bizarre statement this week that it was okay to dress up your chickens this Hallowe’en but not to kiss birds or snuggle them. The fake news story goes that the CDC had issued a warning about Salmonella contamination due to people wanting to put costumes on their chicken. Yes, people do – that part is not fake (please see this website for images, number 2 made me laugh). This is not true, it is safe to dress your chicken so long as you take the usual precautions listed on the CDC website.
 
Belated Happy Hallowe’en.