One infection of MRSA bacteria in an additional employee has been found at the newborn intensive care unit at the University Hospital of Northern Norway.
The hospital informs in a statement.
Thus, a total of nine people have been infected by staphylococcus bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics. Five of them are patients, three are employees and one is a dependent. None of them have become ill by the bacterium.
71 employees have been tested for the bacteria, and 57 samples are negative. The remaining sample results have not arrived yet.
The running of the department will still take place behind closed doors, said the hospital. If there are new newborns who need intensive treatment, it will be evaluated whether the patient can be transferred to other hospitals first, says communications consultant Per-Christian Johansen.
– If they are so ill that they cannot be transferred, they are taken into the part of the department where there are no isolates, he said.
It is assessed from day to day whether the department can open again, but it will happen no earlier than Monday, Johansen says.
The outbreak was first detected in one patient on 27 August, from a random sample.
Source: NTB scanpix / Norway Today
