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MRSA found in maternity ward at Danish hospital

TheCopenhagenPost
May 10th, 2016


This article is more than 8 years old.

Four women have contracted the resistant bacteria while giving birth at a Kolding hospital

Mothers and babies contracted MRSA at Lillebælt Hospital (photo: NIAID)

Four women who gave birth at the Lillebælt Hospital in Kolding have been infected with a rare variant of the resistant MRSA bacteria while they were hospitalised. Three babies have also been infected.

The MRSA variant is the Asian strain, which causes abscesses on suffers.

Rare strain
The women have had their abscesses drained and been given antibiotics to combat the infection, according to Jens Kjølseth Møller,  the head of Clinical Microbiology at Lillebælt Hospital.

“This is a MRSA variant that we do not often see in Denmark,” Møller told Politiken newspaper.

The three newborns are the carriers of the bacteria and are being kept under observation.

READ MORE: MRSA outbreak at Odense University Hospital

Tracking the source
Women who have recently given birth at the hospital are being offered the chance to be examined for the bacteria by their doctor.

The hospital is in the process of tracking down the source of the infection and identifying its possible routes to prevent it spreading further.


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A survey carried out by Megafon for TV2 has found that 71 percent of parents have handed over children to daycare in spite of them being sick.

Moreover, 21 percent of those surveyed admitted to medicating their kids with paracetamol, such as Panodil, before sending them to school.

The FOLA parents’ organisation is shocked by the findings.

“I think it is absolutely crazy. It simply cannot be that a child goes to school sick and plays with lots of other children. Then we are faced with the fact that they will infect the whole institution,” said FOLA chair Signe Nielsen.

Pill pushers
At the Børnehuset daycare institution in Silkeborg a meeting was called where parents were implored not to bring their sick children to school.

At Børnehuset there are fears that parents prefer to pack their kids off with a pill without informing teachers.

“We occasionally have children who that they have had a pill for breakfast,” said headteacher Susanne Bødker. “You might think that it is a Panodil more than a vitamin pill, if it is a child who has just been sick, for example.”

Parents sick and tired
Parents, when confronted, often cite pressure at work as a reason for not being able to stay at home with their children.

Many declare that they simply cannot take another day off, as they are afraid of being fired.

Allan Randrup Thomsen, a professor of virology at KU, has heavily criticised the parents’ actions, describing the current situation as a “vicious circle”.

“It promotes the spread of viruses, and it adds momentum to a cycle where parents are pressured by high levels of sick-leave. If they then choose to send the children to daycare while they are still recovering, they keep the epidemic going in daycares, and this in turn puts a greater burden on the parents.”