Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria Spread Through Pork

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Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria Spread Through Pork

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria are able to spread to humans through the animals they eat, according to the results of a recent study in Taiwan. Salmonellosis is generally a self-limiting infection, but sometimes leads to systemic infection and death.

Fluoroquinolones are antibiotics used to treat the infection in areas where salmonella is resistant to other antibiotics, but a strain of this bacterium has now developed a resistance to fluoroquinolones. People can be infected by this antibiotic-resistant strain by eating swine infected with the bacteria.

The authors of this study evaluated salmonella resistance to fluoro-quinolones, such as ciprofloxacin (used last year to treat anthrax patients) and cases of fluoroquinolone-resistant salmonella in 2000 and 2001 in Taiwan. In 1999, no cases of resistant bacteria appeared on the island, but by 2001, 60% of the samples of salmonella taken at two Taiwanese hospitals were resistant to the antibiotic. None of the patients with the fluoroquinolone-resistant salmonella had taken the drug themselves. Samples of the strain tested in both humans and agricultural swine showed the same genetic mutation in the two species, thus linking the infections with food as the source.

Conclusion: Humans may be susceptible to infection from antibiotic-resistant salmonella in pork that they eat. The authors conclude, "In view of the severe adverse consequences for human health of the use of fluoroquinolones in food animals, we suggest that such use should be prohibited."

Chiu CH, Wu TL, Su LH, et al. The emergence in Taiwan of fluoroquinolone resistance in salmonella enterica serotype choleraesuis. The New England Journal of Medicine 2002:346(6), pp. 413-419.