The number of MRSA bloodstream infections reported by hospitals last year was just five less than the year before, new figures show.
The figures, from the national Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HPSC), indicate 587 patients were detected with MRSA in their blood last year. This compares with 592 such cases in 2005.
David Coleman, professor of microbiology at the Dublin Dental School and Hospital and Trinity College Dublin, said these infections were all life-threatening for the patients concerned.
"The fact that the figures are almost the same as a year earlier is atrocious . . . that is still over 500 people with life-threatening infections," he said.
He added that the number of people with MRSA bloodstream infections was by no means a true measure of the incidence or prevalence of MRSA. "For every one of them there could be 10 MRSA wound infections," he said.
However, only MRSA bloodstream infections are reported to the HPSC. "In some cases, wound infections are very, very serious," he said.
Prof Coleman said hospitals here did not have the isolation facilities required for patients who became infected. "Until we do, we are going to be fighting an uphill battle. You are treating the symptoms and not addressing the basic cause. You need to be able to isolate people. That breaks the chain of spread," he said.
In the long term, 40-50 per cent of hospital beds should be in single rooms, he added.
He acknowledged that handwashing campaigns being run by the HSE to encourage visitors to hospitals to wash their hands would help.
MRSA, methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus, is an antibiotic-resistant bug which can prove fatal if it gets into the bloodstream. A number of inquests have recently returned verdicts of death as a result of MRSA infection.
Dr Robert Cunney, consultant microbiologist with the HPSC, said while there hadn't been a significant change in the numbers of bloodstream MRSA infections between 2005 and 2006, the good news was they hadn't increased and they seemed to be levelling off. "But they levelled off at a rate much higher than we want to see.
"So the real challenge is to try to get those rates to come down," he said.
He added that the figure of 587 MRSA infections was out of a total of 1,396 staphylococcus aureus (staph aureus) bloodstream infections reported last year and "many of these infections, whether caused by a sensitive or resistant strain of infection, are life threatening".
"The level of commitment to this by the HSE has gone up considerably . . . but we are still talking about a number of years before we see a reduction in cases," he added.
The HSE has set up a taskforce to tackle healthcare-acquired infections. It will seek to reduce the incidence of MRSA in hospitals by 30 per cent and reduce antibiotic consumption by 20 per cent over the next five years.