Dr Garcia-Alvarez said finding a new strain in both in humans and cows is 'very worrying' A new strain of the MRSA "superbug" has been found in British cows and is believed to be infecting humans.
Environmental campaigners say the new strain has emerged because of the over-use of antibiotics by dairy farmers.
Dr Mark Holmes of Cambridge University, who led the research, said this was a "credible hypothesis".
The researchers, writing in the Lancet Infectious Diseases Journal, say there is no additional health risk from eating milk and dairy products.
MRSA, or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, is a drug-resistant form of a usually harmless bacterium which can be deadly when it infects wounds.
The 35 or so strains of antibiotic-resistant superbugs are genetically fairly similar. However, this new variety is very different and it is thought that it might have first emerged from cows.
Its discoverers have dubbed it "New MRSA"
Antibiotics are widely used by dairy farmers to treat cows with mastitis. However over-use means some bacteria become resistant and difficult to treat if humans become infected.
Dr Holmes said the problem might be exacerbated by financial pressures on diary farmers.
"If you drive your cows harder to produce more milk you get more mastitis," he told reporters at a news conference.
The Soil Association has called for a complete ban on routine use of antibiotics in farming.
Soil Association director Helen Browning said: "Dairy systems are becoming ever more antibiotic-dependent. We need to get farmers off this treadmill, even if that means that milk has to cost a few pennies more".
Dr Mark Holmes Cambridge University“It does appear that the numbers are rising”
National Farmers' Union chief dairy adviser Rob Newberry said the health and welfare of cows were of "paramount importance" to British dairy farmers.
"In the interests of human and animal health, and animal welfare, it is important that veterinary medicines are administered as little as possible but as much as necessary," he said.
"Any antibiotic or veterinary medicine being administered to a food producing animal has strict conditions of use, including milk and meat withdrawal times, and in general, under European law, would only be available under prescription."
Dr Holmes and his colleague Dr Laura Garcia-Alvarez discovered the new strain while studying a bacterium known to cause mastitis in cows.
They found that, like other MRSA strains, it was resistant to the most commonly used antibiotics. However, the bug was found to be genetica
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