The Medical Research Council (MRC) plans to launch a national study on hospital infections later this year, council president Anthony Mbewu said on Monday.
”When we realised several months ago that hospital-acquired infections were becoming a problem, we discussed it with the Department of Health and decided that the MRC should expand its research,” Mbewu said.
On Thursday, the Department of Health is expected to release a report into the causes of the deaths of 19 babies at KwaZulu-Natal’s Mahatma Gandhi memorial hospital. The initial cause is thought to be the klebsiella bacteria, which can be fatal to people whose defences are low.
Earlier this year, four other babies died of a hospital-acquired infection at the province’s RK Khan hospital. Last year, six babies died at Bloemfontein’s Pelonomi hospital.
Three babies are still receiving emergency treatment inside the Mahatma Gandhi’s now-sealed-off neonatal unit.
”It [hospital-acquired infections] is serious in the United States and Europe and now in developing countries like South Africa,” Mbewu said. ”South Africa is still at the beginning of the curb.”
The team will still decide whether the study will include antibiotic resistance, a growing concern worldwide.
That problem formed part of the British Conservative Party’s recent election campaign after leader Michael Howard’s mother died from methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus — a strain of bacteria that has developed a resistance to many antibiotics.
Heads of pharmaceutical companies are already concerned about global antibiotic resistance increasing the scale of problems like HIV/Aids and malaria.
South Africa already struggles with multidrug-resistant tuberculosis and is increasingly seeing drug resistance to pneumonia — both leading causes of death in the country.
The study will be led by Tygerberg hospital’s Professor Shaheen Mehtar, regarded as an international expert.
It will include research into the number of hospital-acquired infections and the development of a quick-reaction surveillance system.
Preparations for the study are expected to be finalised in August, with the study expected to begin in September. — Sapa