Human–livestock contacts and their relationship to transmission of zoonotic pathogens, a systematic review of literature

Klous, Gijs; Huss, Anke; Heederik, Dick J.J.; Coutinho, Roel A.

We included seventy-five articles ( Fig. 1) and an overview is given in Table 1 . Eighteen infectious agents were studied in the selected papers: Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) was studied most often (N = 20 papers), followed by Avian Influenza (AI, N = 19) and Coxiella burnetii (C. burnetii, N = 10). An overview of micro-organisms and their associated host animals is provided in Table 2 . The results are divided in two sections; occupational contact and non-occupational contact. This division was based on the level of reported or assumed contact between humans and livestock, with the assumption that people in livestock handling occupations have greater exposure. Publications reporting on zoonoses from developing countries are classified within the non-occupational contact section, because occupations in these countries are difficult to specify and livestock exposure is not comparable to occupational livestock exposure in developed countries.