The tiny, spiny and adorable hedgehog is helping to upend conventional wisdom about the origins of drug-resistant bacterial infections that kill thousands of people each year.
A group of international scientists found that the bacterium that causes a tough-to-treat infection existed in nature before antibiotics were mass produced in the 1940s. The wide distribution of antibiotics has led to an evolution of superbugs that have evaded our efforts to eradicate them with pharmaceuticals.
The key to the theory? There is a roadkill in Danes.
The researchers found MRSA on the skin of most of the dead animals they examined. It was surprising that the animals had not been exposed to penicillin, a drug that can cause infections in animals. The danger arises when thesebacteria enter the bloodstream through a wound or a tube, with potentially deadly consequences for those with weakened immune systems.
The scientists were intrigued by another pathogen they found on many of the same hedgehogs, a skin fungus that produces a penicillin-like substance. This naturally occurring antibiotic is in constant battle with the staphbacteria that compete for the same amount of food on the hedgehog's skin. The study showed that some of the bacteria were able to outsmart their rivals and thrive on their hosts.
It is a familiar tale in the annals of infectious disease. The particular strain of MRSA that colonized the hedgehogs, known as mecC-MRSA, later found its way to dairy cows in rural areas where both creatures flourish. Ten to 30 people a year are sickened by mecC-MRSA.
The evolution of mecC-MRSA can be traced back to the early 1800s thanks to genetic coding.
The findings added to the narrative that the rise of superbugs was due to the over use of antibiotics, according to the lead author of the paper. The main message is that MRSApredates antibiotic use in humans, but the broader theme is that we are not alone in this world. Antibiotic resistance can be transmitted between species.
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The New York Times has a story about a microbiologist at Statens Serum Institut in Copenhagen.
The findings helped confirm assumptions about the dynamics of antibiotic resistance, according to researchers not involved with the study. Antimicrobial substances are abundant in nature and have been found to outsmart other compounds.
Lance Price, who leads the Antibiotic Resistance Action Center at George Washington University, praised the research for documenting the process in the real world.
He said that this is an interesting story because he loves hedgehogs. The paper shows the evolution of a drug-resistant human pathogen.
Tara C. Smith is an epidemiologist at the Kent State University College of Public Health who studies livestock-associated MRSA. She said that it just steps up the need for better antibiotic stewardship and to take heed of what we are using.
The animals that were tested for mecC-MRSA had a lot of it on them, but it did not seem to sicken them. MecC-MRSA has spread to dairy herds across northern Europe and can sometimes cause infections in cows, but it has never caused illness in humans.
The results of the paper inspired other researchers to expand their focus on antibiotic resistance in wild animals. He warned against the notion that naturally occurring resistance somehow lessened the need to curb the use of antimicrobial drugs.
He said that the lesson was that when we use antibiotics, we accelerate what is already happening in nature.
There is a lesson to be learned from the study. Although the risks of humans contracting MRSA directly from the animals are likely minimal, maintaining a healthy distance from the animals was always prudent.
