Patients being killed by superbugs, claims doctor

ANTIBIOTIC-RESISTANT superbugs are killing patients, Dr Robert Cunney of the National Disease Surveillance Centre claimed yesterday.

But, he said, it wouldn't be until next year that the NDSC would begin to have some idea of the incidence and prevalence of methilcillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA in hospitals.

There are various existing strains of MRSA and new ones are emerging, but it is not known how many people have been infected or whether they have recovered.

Clinical microbiologist Dr Cunney said there were also strains of the disease beginning to emerge that were easily transmissible.

"It does seem that the increase in the rates of MSRA are due to a particularly transmissible strain," he said yesterday.

Based on the infection rates seen in Ireland and based on the experience worldwide, patients were twice as likely to die from an antibiotic-resistant bacteria, than from one that was antibiotic-sensitive, he said. Dr Cunney pointed out that the NDSC would be issuing national guidelines to hospitals next year on hand hygiene hand-washing between patients should be a must for doctors and nurses to prevent the spread of MSRA.

He pointed out that there was one particular MRSA strain that, as well as being resistant to a lot of standard antibiotics, also has a certain level of resistance to drugs of choice for treating MRSA infections.

Obviously, he said, if MRSA becomes more resistant to these antibiotics as well, infections would become more difficult to treat.

These types of bacteria had already caused problems in a number of countries around the world, particularly in the US and Japan. "It would be a very worrying trend if they were to emerge here," he said.

Dr Cunney said it was estimated that resistant infections probably tripled the cost of a hospital stay.

The challenge for the NDSC was both identifying and controlling antibiotic-resistant infections. Ireland was already behind most other European countries in making a start in this area.

Fortunately, said Dr Cunney, the funding was now in place because the Department of Health had made E4.5 million per year available so that hospitals would now have the resources to gather the information that was needed.