Surgical ward at Helsinki Children's Hospital hit by hospital bacteria outbreak

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The paediatric surgery ward of the Helsinki Children's hospital has been infected by the antibiotic-resistant Extended Spectrum BetaLactamase (ESBL) bacteria. Since mid-March, section K6 of the ward has been restricted to patients who carry the infection.
      Last year ten carriers of ESBL were diagnosed. This year so far there have already been eight.
      "The ward performs very demanding surgery. Children are treated there who have part of their intestines missing", says Ville Valtonen, head physician of the Clinic of Infectious Diseases.
      These children are on strict diets, and the treatment often involves complications resulting in infections. They are given repeated courses of antibiotics, and are vulnerable to being infected by antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
     
ESBL is not a separate bacteria like MRSA, which is often the cause of hospital infections. Instead, it is mainly a characteristic that makes bacteria resistant to antibiotics.
      ESBL spread to Finland from other European countries in 2000. It has spread across the country. More than 500 cases were diagnosed in the Hospital District of Helsinki and Uusimaa (HUS).
      ESBL strains became more common in ordinary E. coli, and Clebsiella bacteria, which are normally present in the intestinal tract.
      When an adult with ESBL gets a urinary infection, no orally-administered medicine will help.
     
More recently, ESBL infections also involved cases of blood poisoning, which are more deadly than other types of blood poisoning.
      ESBL spreads easily in children's wards because children often do not understand the importance of hand hygiene.
     
The board of HUS gave its approval on Monday to an investment programme of EUR one million for repairs and refurbishing of section K6.
      Valtonen does not believe that the repairs will solve the problem. K6 lacks isolation rooms, and the narrow space available do not allow for the setting up of such rooms.
      These structural reasons make it difficult to get rid of ESBL at the Children's Hospital.
      Valtonen believes that some of the children will become permanent carriers of the bacteria, and will suffer repeated infections.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Hospital District of Helsinki and Uusimaa (HUS)

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