Introduction

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus pseudintermedius (MRSP) are important pathogens in dogs with pyoderma, and their nostrils are believed to be reservoirs for future skin infections, as is stated for S. aureus in human patients. MRSP have the mecA gene, which is responsible for bacterial resistance to beta-lactam antibiotics.

Objectives

To evaluate the correlation between the presence of MRSP in skin lesions and nostrils of dogs with superficial pyoderma seen at the veterinary teaching hospital of UFMG from March to June of 2013.

Methods

Skin lesions and nostrils of 43 dogs with superficial pyoderma were sampled with sterile swabs. The samples were sent to culture, and the colonies isolated were submitted to genotypic tests to identify the species and the mecA gene (Mehrotra et al. 2000; Sasaki et al. 2010).

Results

From the 68 isolates, 25 (36,7%) were shown to carry the mecA gene, 12 (48%) were from skin lesion samples, and 13 (52%) were from nostrils. Seventeen dogs were mecA carriers; 8 (47%) had it in both skin lesions and nostrils. A positive Spearman's correlation (p<0.01, r=0.002) was observed between the presence of the gene in both sites.

Discussion

The correlation suggests that the nostrils could be a reservoir of MRSP for skin infections, as observed in other studies with dogs (Beck et al. 2012) and humans (Bessesen et al. 2015; Nikfar et al. 2015; Sai et al. 2015).

Conclusions

The nostrils, possibly, can act as reservoirs of MRSP infections, which makes the disease control even more challenging.