Antimicrobial Resistance and Clonal Lineages of Staphylococcus aureus from Cattle, Their Handlers, and Their Surroundings: A Cross-Sectional Study from the One Health Perspective

have been progressively identified in farm animals and in humans with direct contact with these animals showing that may be a major zoonotic pathogen. Therefore, we aimed to isolate from cows, their handlers, and their immediate surroundings, and to investigate the antimicrobial resistance and genetic lineages of the isolates. Mouth and nose swabs of 244 healthy cows (195 Maronesa, 11 Holstein-Friesians, and 28 crossbreeds), 82 farm workers, 53 water and 63 soil samples were collected. Identification of species was carried out by MALDI-TOF MS Biotyper. The presence of antimicrobial resistance genes and virulence factors was assessed based on gene search by PCR. All isolates were typed by multilocus sequence typing and -typing. From 442 samples, 33 (13.9%), 24 (29.3%), 1 (2%), and 1 (2%) were recovered from cows, farm workers, water, and soil samples, respectively. Most of the isolates showed resistance only to penicillin. isolates were ascribed to 17 sequence types (STs) and 26 -types. Some clonal lineages were common to both cows and farm workers such as ST30-t9413, ST72-t148, and ST45-t350. Through a One Health approach, this study revealed that there is a great diversity of clonal lineages of in cows and their handlers. Furthermore, some lineages are common to cows and handlers, which may suggest a possible transmission.