Role of Enterotoxin-Producing Staphylococci in Zoonotic Infections in Iran

Context: Staphylococcus spp. are enterotoxin-producing zoonotic agents which cause a variety of infections such as mastitis in animals as well as human wound bite infections. This review was conducted to determine the prevalence of staphylococcal species especially enterotoxin-producing species in Iran. Evidence Acquisition: For this review, words of “Staphylococcus”, “zoonotic”, “prevalence”, “animals”, “human” and “Iran” were searched in the internet search engines such as Google Scholar, PubMed, Google, Science Direct and so on. Patients with no history of contact with animals were also included in the study for comparison. Both animal and human coagulase positive isolates were included. Data was analyzed with Graph Pad Prism 6, meta-analysis section. A total of 20 previous studies (450 clinical samples) were found. Staphylococcus intermedius was the most predominant isolate identified in animals. Other coagulase positive species such as S. hyicus and S. simulans were isolated with lower prevalence, and S. delphini was not detected. Conclusion: Staphylococcus intermedius was the most prevalent isolate identified in animals, with potential of causing infections in humans. Other coagulase positive species such as S. hyicus and S. simulans were isolated with lower prevalence, and S. delphini was not detected.