LAUSR

To the editor: In their article titled ‘Livestock-associated meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (LA-MRSA) among human MRSA isolates, European Union/ European Economic Area countries, 2013’, Kinross et al. recently reported on the occurrence of LA-MRSA in humans [1]. The results were obtained by an ECDC initiated study documenting the identification of LA-MRSA (i.e. CC398 and ‘other’ LA-MRSA) in European Union/ European Economic Area countries (EU/EEA) countries and the MRSA subtyping capacity and availability in EU/EEA national or regional reference laboratories. ECDC National Focal Points for Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) were invited to designate a primary and alternate contact person with expertise in molecular surveillance of MRSA for public health purposes and with access to data for the survey in their respective countries; 27 of 30 EU/EEA countries responded to this request for data.