zoonoses and communicable diseases common to ... - PAHO/WHO

252 BACTERIOSESIn the US during the period 1977–1981, 131 outbreaks were reported, affecting7,126 people. In the last three years of that five-year period, only enterotoxin A wasincriminated. Milk (the most common source of toxins C and D) and commerciallypackaged foods are the least common causes of the disease in the United States(Holmberg and Blake, 1984). In Japan, the annual average of food poisoning outbreaksfrom 1976 to 1980 was 827. Of a total of 8,742 cases, 28.2% were caused bystaphylococcal poisoning (Genigeorgis, 1989).It has been suggested that a proportion of the intestinal disorders frequentlyobserved in developing countries are caused by staphylococcal food poisoning.Evidence of this is the fact that titers of antibodies to enterotoxins are higher in residentsof these countries than in travelers (Bergdoll, 1979).Occurrence in Animals: Spontaneous cases of staphylococcal poisoning indomestic animals are not known. The rhesus monkey (Macaca mulatta) is susceptibleto the enterotoxin through the digestive tract and is used as an experimental animalto show the presence of the toxin in implicated foods. Intravenous or peritonealinoculation with the enterotoxin in cats and kittens has also been used for the samepurpose. Dogs possibly suffer from gastroenteritis similar to that in man.Mastitis in cattle caused by staphylococci is of interest from a public health perspective.In modern milking systems, S. aureus is a common pathogen in cows’udders. The agent is transmitted by means of milking machines or the milker’shands, and enters through the milk duct or superficial lesions on the teat. Mastitiscaused by S. aureus in cattle may vary from the prevalent subclinical form of infectionto a severe gangrenous form. Both forms are economically important becauseof the losses they cause in milk production (Gillespie and Timoney, 1981). Studiesconducted in five northern European countries and in Japan have shown that a largeproportion of the staphylococci isolated from cases of bovine mastitis are toxigenic.In Europe, 41.4% of 174 strains isolated produced enterotoxins, and of these, 48.6%produced A; 5.6%, B; 29.2%, C; and 33.3%, D; either singly or in combination. InJapan, 34.4% of 1,056 strains isolated from cows with subclinical mastitis were toxigenic,and of these 31.1% produced enterotoxin A; 54.3%, C; 27%, D; and 10.7%,B; either singly or in combination. Enterotoxins A, C, or D are the predominanttypes in staphylococcal poisoning in many countries (Kato and Kume, 1980).Nevertheless, the types of enterotoxins produced by strains isolated from milk seemto vary in prevalence in different countries; this may often be because an unrepresentativenumber of strains has been studied.S. intermedius and S. aureus are the most common agents in canine skin infectionsand cause pyoderma, impetigo, folliculitis, and furunculosis. S. aureus is frequentlya complicating agent of demodectic mange, producing cellulitis in the deeplayers of the skin. Enterotoxigenic staphylococci were isolated from 13% of 115domestic dogs in Japan. The strains isolated were producers of enterotoxins A, C,and D that can cause food poisoning in man (Kaji and Kato, 1980). A study conductedin Brazil in dogs with pyodermatitis confirmed that 13 of 52 isolates of S.intermedius and 6 of 21 of S. aureus produced enterotoxins. There were six isolatesof enterotoxin C, seven of D, and six of E. Four strains produced toxic shock syndrometoxin-1 (Hirooka et al., 1988).In fowl, staphylococcal infection can cause diseases ranging from pyoderma tosepticemia with different localizations (salpingitis, arthritis, and other disorders).