Hospital bug that kills in 24 hours

Seven people were infected in an outbreak at a West Midlands hospital. Two - a hospital worker and a patient - died.

An investigation by the Health Protection Agency found that three other workers at the hospital had also contracted the virus, along with two of their friends.

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Hospital-acquired MRSA is normally most deadly for elderly and infirm patients.

But the strain found in the West Midlands, known as PVL, is particularly virulent and can attack healthy young people.

Symptoms range from minor infections in the skin and soft tissue to a form of pneumonia that can kill in 24 hours.

The outbreak was discovered after the hospital worker, who had been perfectly healthy, developed MRSA and pneumonia. Despite emergency treatment, she died in September.

Patients and staff on the ward where she had worked were tested, and it was discovered a colleague was carrying the same strain of the bug.

An analysis of samples from previous MRSA victims, kept in the hospital laboratory, found that a patient on the ward who died in March had also been infected with the PVL strain.

At least three other workers in two wards and two of their friends had also contracted the bug. In 2004 a Royal Marine recruit was killed by the PVL strain when it entered his body after he scratched his legs on gorse bushes during training.

Richard Campbell-Smith, 18, was at the peak of physical fitness but died within three days. A woman of 28 also died after picking up the bug in her local gym.

A small number of other cases have been reported, but PVL, which stands for Panton-Valentine Leukocidin-positive, has never caused deaths inside a British hospital before.

The Health Protection Agency said in a statement: 'Cases of Panton-Valentine Leukocidin-positive community associated MRSA have been identified among individuals in a hospital and their close household contacts in the West Midlands.' It said two of the affected people had died.

The HPA said the nurse who died became infected after having an operation at the hospital, which has not been named.

She is thought to have been carrying the bug in her skin, and it entered her body through a surgical wound.

The patient who died some months earlier is thought to have been the source of the bug.

Investigations found that another nurse on the same ward, who had been complaining of skin abscesses, was also infected. So were two nurses on another ward and two of their flatmates.

The PVL toxin attacks white blood cells, leaving the sufferer unable to fight infection.

It was thought to have been virtually eradicated in the 1950s and cases are still rare. But many people carry the bug on their skin.

The PVL strain is passed between people in close contact, in situations where skin irritation is likely. This can be people in sporting teams, military recruits and injecting drug users.

PVL is produced by 1.6 per cent of the common staphylococcus species of bacteria, which are termed MRSA when they are resistant to the antibiotic methicillin.

Bacteria causing PVL can generate very quickly - one bug can multiply into 17 million within 24 hours.

PVL usually causes skin infections such as abscesses and boils. If it is caught in the early stages it can normally be treated with methicillin, but once in the lungs it has a 40 per cent mortality rate.

Hospital-related MRSA strains do not produce PVL and are more commonly associated with causing wound infections and blood-poisoning in elderly patients.

MRSA - or methicillin resistant staphylococcus aureus - has already become resistant to most common antibiotics, making it difficult to treat with drugs.

Once it gets into the body, through wounds or medical tubes, it can cause an infection that could kill someone already weakened by illness.

Last week a survey found Britain has one of the worst records in Europe for tackling MRSA. The UK was fifth from bottom for rates of the superbug.

In Britain, it is estimated that MRSA and other infections such as clostridium difficile kill up to 5,000 patients every year, despite a Government drive to clean up hospitals.

Other estimates claim the real figure may be twice as high. In England alone, 300,000 patients pick up an infection in hospital every year.