October 4, 2006 Source: :
http://www.uoguelph.ca/mediarel/2006/10/ovc_study_finds.html OVC Study Finds Bacterium in
Dairy Calves A
bacterium that is the major cause of one of the most common hospital
infections in the world has been found in Ontario food animals by
researchers at the Ontario Veterinary College. Their investigation of Clostridium difficile will be published in an
upcoming issue of the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases. Scott Weese, a University of Guelph clinical studies professor and one of
the study’s authors, says the research focus was on the presence of the
bacterium in the feces of dairy calves in Ontario. It was found in 11 per
cent of the animals. He cautions against drawing conclusions from the initial findings. "It’s too
soon to conclude the presence of the bacterium automatically means people
can become infected and develop C. difficile-associated disease through
eating meat." Weese, who specializes in diseases that pass between animals and humans, is
investigating the presence of the bacterium in meat in another study, but
said the findings have yet to be published. Similar research is also being
done by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Food Safety and Inspection
Services and National Institutes of Health. C. difficile is recognized as the major cause of colitis (inflammation of
the colon) and diarrhea. The bacterium is primarily acquired in hospitals
and chronic-care facilities following antibiotic therapy covering a wide
variety of bacteria, and is the most frequent cause of outbreaks of diarrhea
in hospitalized patients. It has caused severe hospital outbreaks in Quebec
and Great Britain, and in the United States alone, it causes about three
million cases a year. But increasingly, it’s been discovered in people who haven't been
hospitalized, which has fuelled suspicions about how it was contracted and
whether food supply is to blame. Weese and Alexander Rodriguez-Palacios, the study’s lead author, tested
feces samples from 278 calves from 102 farms in Ontario. Rodriguez-Palacios
is a D.V.Sc. student and is completing a residency in large-animal internal
medicine at OVC. His research focuses on developing probiotics for
prevention of diarrhea and epidemiology of infectious diseases, particularly
of pathogens with potential public health implications. They found that the cattle strains of C. difficile were "indistinguishable'"
from those that have infected humans. Weese said that there could be several
explanations. These include the strains evolving in parallel in different
species and there being regular movement of various types of the bacterium
among different species. "Further study is needed to evaluate these
possibilities," he said. For media questions, contact Communications and Public Affairs: Lori Bona
Hunt, 519 824-4120, Ext. 53338, or Rachelle Cooper, Ext. 56982.
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