28 June 2005

AMSTERDAM — A patient died in the St. Jans Gasthuis in the Dutch town of Weert last week as a result of the superbug MRSA.

A spokesperson for the hospital said it was highly unusual for a patient to die from an MRSA infection.

It is unclear where the patient, who was not named, came in contact with the illness.

The spokesperson said the patient was admitted to the hospital with an infection which transpired to be MRSA. While MRSA is big news in British hospitals, it is not believed this case originated outside the Netherlands.

MRSA is the term given to Methicillin resistant strains of the bacteria Staphylococcus Aureus, it  is also used as a description for any strain of Staphylococcus bacteria which is resistant to one or more conventional antibiotic, the  European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI) says.

The EBI writes on its website that MRSA is an infection that is now endemic in almost every hospital in the UK. In 2004 100,000 of those who went into hospital contracted an infection there.

Of those, 5,000 died and a very high proportion of these instances were related to MRSA infection, according to the EBI.

The hospital in Weert has taken steps to ensure that the infection does not spread. The personnel who were in contact with the deceased have undergone tests and the results will be known by the end of the week.

The germ is generally not harmful to healthy people but can have serious consequences for patients who immune systems are weak.

[Copyright Expatica News + ANP 2005]

Subject: Dutch news, MRSA