The first livestock-associated MRSA case has been reported in Ireland, following lab tests on an elderly patient.

The health authorities have warned that if more specimens of this potentially deadly new MRSA type are found in Ireland, extra infection prevention and control measures will have to be implemented to prevent its spread.

This would include pre-admission screening of high-risk patients who have had close contacts with livestock.

While it has not been confirmed whether the patient concerned became seriously ill as a result of the bug, this type of MRSA has been known to cause life-threatening infections in humans when it has occurred in other countries.

The HSE's Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HPSC) has revealed that the ST398 MRSA strain, sometimes dubbed 'pig MRSA', was detected recently an elderly man living in a rural nursing home, who had been a part-time cattle farmer.

He was screened a number of times for MRSA during periods of hospitalisation between 2009 and 2011, and the 'pig MRSA' bug was found following extensive lab tests after his most recent hospitalisation late last year.

'Pig MRSA' was originally reported in 2005 among pigs, pig farmers and their close contracts in France and the Netherlands.

It got its title due to the high proportion of farmers found to be colonised with ST398 MRSA in several European countries, as well as in the USA and Canada, in particular where there is a high density of pig farming.

The bug has more recently been dubbed 'livestock-associated MRSA' as it has also been found among other animal species including cattle and poultry.

According to the HPSC, the ST398 livestock-associated MRSA strain was detected in the patient following lab tests from a throat swab taken after his hospitalisation in October 2011.

The HPSC said prior to the patent's residency in a nursing home, he had been a part-time cattle farmer.

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