05.06.14
PHE confirms more cases of ‘poisoned’ hospital feeds
A further three cases of premature babies being infected by a contaminated drip have been confirmed by Public Health England (PHE).
This takes the total number of cases to 18, including one case in which a newborn baby died. The regulator stated that the babies, who are suffering from blood poisoning (septicaemia), were in neonatal intensive care units at a small number of hospitals in England.
However, health officials have stated that the majority of the babies, who became unwell last week, are responding to antibiotic treatment, and no new cases have occurred since 2 June 2014 – when the batches of the affected stock expired.
Investigations are ongoing but so far indications show that the cases have been strongly linked with a number of batches of a particular form of intravenous liquid called parenteral nutrition which was given to the babies. This contains a variety of nutrients that are delivered directly into the babies’ bloodstream when they have problems ingesting food via their mouth. This batch of product was manufactured by ITH Pharma Limited.
Following a Class 1 drug alert by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) to support the manufacturer’s recall of the product on 3 June 2014, PHE stated that it is confident that any remaining stock of this medicine is not being used in hospitals.
Karen Hamling, managing director of ITH Pharma Limited, said: “As a mother, as a pharmacist, as someone who has worked for 30 years in healthcare, inside and outside the NHS, I am deeply saddened that one baby has died and 14 others have fallen ill from septicaemia.
“As the managing director of ITH Pharma, I want to reassure you that we are doing everything possible to help the regulators, the MHRA, to establish what has happened in this case.
“We have instituted a recall of the limited number of batches which could potentially have been affected, and all stock has been removed from circulation.”
The batch expired on Monday so should not have been used in the past two days. But a total of 162 units were sent out from the contaminated batch to more than 20 hospitals.
The neonatal intensive care units with cases include:
- Chelsea and Westminster NHS Trust (4 cases)
- Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust (3 cases)
- The Whittington Hospital (1 case)
- Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust (3 cases)
- CUH Addenbrookes (Cambridge University Hospitals) (2 cases)
- Luton and Dunstable University Hospital (2 cases)
- Peterborough City Hospital (1 case)
- Southend University Hospital (1 case)
- Basildon University Hospital (1 case)
Professor Mike Catchpole, PHE incident director, said: “This is a very unfortunate incident and PHE have been working closely with the MHRA to investigate how these babies could have become infected.
“Given that the bacteria [Bacillus cereus] is widely spread in the environment we are continuing to investigate any other potential sources of infection. However all our investigations to date indicate that the likely source of the infection has been identified.
“We have acted quickly to investigate this issue alongside the MHRA and we have taken action to ensure that the affected batches and any remaining stock of this medicine is not being used in hospitals.”
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