Three Danes die after infection by antibiotic-resistant swine bacteria

Testimony in disclosure case reveals deaths

Three Danes are now known to have died as a result of being infected with a strain of antibiotic-resistant MRSA bacteria from pigs.

“I know of a patient at my hospital who died last year of an MRSA infection found in pigs,” consultant and professor of clinical microbiology at Odense University Hospital, Hans Jørn Kolmos, said during testimony in Aarhus in a case concerning the disclosure of private information.”When I reported the death, I asked Statens Serum Institut if there had been other instances and they said that there had been one in 2012 and another a year later.”

READ MORE: Swine-fever alarm called off at Danish Crown slaughterhouse

Kolmos testified yesterday in the case brought in 2010 by Sundhedsstyrelsen, the board of health, which reported two journalists to the police for publishing the addresses of 12 pig farms infected with bacteria.

Kolmos said that it was “extremely concerning” that the bacteria had found their way into the population at large. The three people who died from the MRSA infection had not been in contact with pigs.

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