A global genetic study found that 87.2% of Klebsiella pneumoniae samples from pet dogs and cats belonged to strain types that have also turned up in people. That means the family dog curling up on the bed or the cat napping on the couch could be carrying a bacterial lineage closely related to the kind doctors battle in sick patients, not some separate animal-only version of the bug.
Scientists examined 712 samples of Klebsiella pneumoniae, a bacterium that normally lives quietly in the gut but can cause serious pneumonia, urinary tract infections, and bloodstream infections when it strikes at the wrong time. Published in the journal Transboundary and Emerging Diseases, the study drew on samples from dogs and cats in 25 countries and compared them against a database of more than 38,000 human-linked samples of the same bug. The overlap in strain types was hard to ignore.
Cats fared worse than dogs in the analysis, with 80% of cat samples showing resistance to multiple classes of antibiotics compared to about 56% in dogs. Nearly half of all pet samples worldwide carried genes tied to resistance against key antibiotic drug classes, including some genes that fend off carbapenems, the medications doctors reach for when nothing else works.
Researchers Compared 712 Pet Samples Against Global Human Data
To build this picture, the research team gathered publicly available genetic records of the bacteria collected from dogs and cats worldwide, drawing on international databases maintained by health and research agencies. After filtering out low-quality or mislabeled samples, they were left with 712 confirmed genomes from pets, spanning 25 countries.
Each sample’s genetic code was analyzed to identify its strain type, essentially a genetic fingerprint that groups related bacteria together, and checked for genes known to make bacteria resistant to antibiotics. Two categories of genes drew particular attention: one that helps bacteria break down common antibiotics, and a tougher category tied to carbapenem resistance. Bacteria carrying resistance genes covering three or more different antibiotic classes were labeled multidrug-resistant.
To see how the pet bacteria compared with what is circulating in people, the researchers built a comparison set of 38,106 human-linked samples of the same germ, collected from 2019 onward across 88 countries. Then they measured the overlap between pet and human strains.
Source : https://studyfinds.com/drug-resistant-bacteria-pets-match-strains-in-humans