Galery

1

Anastasia Balezdrova

The management of Thessaloniki "Papageorgiou" Hospital has stopped admitting newborns to its intensive care ward. The reason for this decision was three cases of deaths of newborns caused by the Klebsiella bacterium infection.

At least another four and, according to some sources, six newborns who were treated in the intensive care ward had been infected with the same bacterium. Although there were suspicions about an outbreak of a hospital epidemic on Saturday, the management did not close the ward. However, it ordered preventive antibiotic treatment for the other newborns who had been admitted.

GRReporter contacted the epidemic expert and specialist in infectious diseases, Sotiris Tsiodras, from the Hellenic Centre for Diseases Control and Prevention. The decision to stop the admission of new patients in the "Papageorgiou" Hospital was made at the insistence of the Centre.

"The Klebsiella bacterium is normally found in the human intestine. Most likely, it spread in the hospital, but we do not yet know whether it was there or if some of the children brought it. "

Sotiris Tsiodras explains that when the bacterium enters the bloodstream it can cause pneumonia and even sepsis. According to him, it spreads very quickly when the rules of hygiene are not followed. It is also extremely resistant to different antibiotics.

In this case, "Strict hygiene measures should be taken as well as disinfection; patients should be treated in isolated premises, the premises must be cleaned carefully and very good hand hygiene should be observed."

According to the Hellenic Centre for Diseases Control and Prevention, the three newborns, who were unable to fight the infection, were born prematurely, their weight was below the norm and they suffered from other diseases.

The epidemiologist said that such cases were common in intensive care wards, and especially in those with newborns. "We manage to find where the epidemic originated from only in half of the cases. Hygiene measures are essential to stop it from the outset."