Hospital's intensive care unit is closed to halt spread of superbug

St James's Hospital, Dublin, has closed its intensive care unit to admissions following the spread of a potentially fatal "superbug" among a number of critically ill patients.

Two patients have been moved to an isolation facility within the hospital after they were found to have been infected. A third patient, who was identified as the carrier of the high-resistant bacteria, is understood to have died.

It was not clear yesterday whether the superbug contributed to the death.

Dr Jan Moriarty, medical director of the intensive care unit at St James's, said she understood it was the first occasion such a resistant strain of the bacterium, acinetobacter baumanii, had been identified in an Irish hospital. "It's a bacterium which gives us great concern because it's not one of our usual intensive care bacteria," she said. "We know that this particular strain of this bacteria was brought into our unit by a patient who was treated abroad. I can't go into any more details on that patient because of confidentiality issues."

The hospital also declined to give any details on the other two infected patients, other than saying they were critical, as would be the case given they had been admitted to intensive care.

While the unit undergoes decontamination, new admissions requiring intensive care treatment are being redirected to other parts of the hospital. Speaking on RTE radio yesterday, Dr Moriarty described these "unprecedented" steps as a precaution.

Acinetobacter baumanii was implicated in eight deaths at Christchurch hospital, New Zealand, in 1988 and 1999. A superbug of unidentified nature was linked to another two deaths in Auckland.

The over-prescription of antibiotics as well as the use of antibiotics as growth stimulants in animals, particularly pigs and poultry, have been blamed for the outbreaks.

"Resistance to antibiotics is becoming a major problem, not just in intensive care but across the board," said Dr Moriarty. "More and more of these bugs are developing mechanisms to fight the antibiotics that we have in current use and we are seeing the development of very resistant strains."

She noted that worldwide there were reports of 10 to 25 per cent of patients in an intensive care setting being infected with the bacteria. In contrast, the prevalence in Ireland was "quite low" with about 5 per cent of patients in St James's having it at any one time.

Usually, it is sensitive to conventional antibiotics. The current strain, however, was said to be was "extremely resistant".

In a statement, the hospital said the prevention of its spread was by meticulous attention to hand-washing, isolation of affected patients and cleaning of the unit with environmental decontamination, "all of which are now in place".

It was the hospital's intention to reopen the unit as quickly as possible, the statement added.

The Labour Party's health spokeswoman, Ms Liz McManus, claimed chronic staff shortages in hospitals were contributing to the spread of bacteria. "The crisis in our health service means that quite often nurses must perform more immediate tasks and care for patients."