According to a new study led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, DNA sequencing of bacteria found in pigs and humans in rural eastern North Carolina, an area particularly dense in industrial-scale pig-farming, multidrug-resistant Staphylococcus aureus strains are spreading between pigs, farmworkers, their families and community residents and represents an emerging public health threat. Researchers sequenced the DNA from Staphylococcus aureus samples to determine the relation of the strains found in pigs and people. They found that the strains were very closely related, providing evidence for transmission between pigs and people.