One in ten children in intensive care have MRSA

One in ten children in intensive care have MRSA

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One tenth of all children admitted to a paediatric intensive care unit have been found to carry MRSA.

This was discovered at Birmingham Children's Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, after it introduced same-day MRSA screening for patients admitted to the PICU a month ago.

Previously, only high-risk cardiac patients had been screened, using traditional testing which can take up to three days to produce results.

However, the trust had become concerned that half of infections were not detected before symptoms appeared. There was one MRSA bacteraemia case last year and several surgical site infections.

Around 100 new patients on PICU have been screened using the new rapid polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test for MRSA – and 10% were carriers.

Natalie Edwards, senior sister in PICU, said: 'We would have normally only known that these children carried MRSA once they had an infection. Now we know which ones are carriers we can quickly get them into treatment, with isolation and eradication. That way we can minimise cross-contamination.'

Children's hospitals are not subject to Department of Health requirements to screen all elective admissions for MRSA from next March.