A BABY died and 14 others across six hospitals have suffered blood poisoning from an apparently contaminated batch of intravenously fed liquid.
The child who died was being treated at Guy's and St Thomas's Hospital in central London after the blood poisoning, caused by the bacterium Bacillus cereus.
The victim was among a number of babies, who are mainly premature, being cared for in neonatal intensive care units across England. The others affected are responding to antibiotics.
Public Health England and the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) are investigating. Because Bacillus cereus develops quickly, no further cases are expected.
Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridgeshire said it had had two cases, with both babies "stable and improving". Two further cases were at Luton and Dunstable University Hospital. Chelsea and Westminster said four babies were infected at its neonatal unit.
A spokesman said: "Public Health England has been investigating a small number of cases of infections on neonatal units within six UK hospitals, including CUH Addenbrooke's.
"The infections were traced back to a feeding substance which has now been withdrawn.
"All the babies concerned are being treated and have responded well."
The liquid, manufactured by ITH Pharma Limited, aims to deliver nutrients intravenously when a baby is unable to eat on their own.
The supplier was not available for comment.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article