ANOTHER BABY with a suspected case of pseudomonas is being treated at the Royal-Jubilee Maternity hospital’s neo-natal unit in Belfast, a spokesman for the North’s Department of Health confirmed last night.
This is the seventh suspected case of the bacterial infection at the hospital in the past fortnight.
Three of the babies died from the illness, while a fourth recovered but later died from an unrelated illness.
It was stated last night that “there is a high index of suspicion” that another baby who is said to be seriously ill has contracted the infection. Pseudomonas was not formally confirmed, but indications were the child had the illness, the spokesman said.
An unlinked strain of the infection claimed the life of another baby in Altnagelvin Hospital in Derry before Christmas.
The Department of Health also said yesterday that five other babies who have the pseudomonas bacteria on their skin have been identified at the Belfast hospital, but this was not causing concern about further active infection.
“The babies continue to receive the neo-natal care they require. As a precautionary measure, babies’ skin may be screened again as the situation requires to see if they are carrying the bacteria.”
Minister of Health Edwin Poots told the Stormont Assembly yesterday that pseudomonas was a bacteria that thrived in water and soil, and that work was being carried out to check if the bacteria at the hospital had come from a water source.
He said babies who had little immunity to fight the infection were particularly vulnerable.
“It has no impact on people whose immune systems are normal but people who have very low immune systems it can have a very devastating impact, and obviously the babies in the neo-natal unit have little immunity to fight these infections.”
