By Libya Herald staff.
Tripoli, 22 February 2015:
The Zawia Teaching Hospital has temporarily shut its doors following a number of infant deaths in the . . .[restrict]past couple of days. The number of deaths has now risen to nine and the deadly Klebsiella bacteria is being named as the cause.
In order to keep the bacteria from spreading to other patients, the Ministry of Health has demanded that the remaining infected children be quarantined in a sterile location and the hospital be shut down and santised.
Klebsiella, which lives in the nose, mouth and gastrointestinal tract as normal flora, can lead to pneumonia, urinary tract infections, meningitis and diarrhoea. Those with weaker immune systems, such as newborns and the elderly, are most susceptible to the bacteria, and most cases occur while patients are in hospital seeking treatment for another reason.
In 2012, 20 children died after being infected by the same bacteria at the Tripoli Children’s Hospital on Omar Mukhtar Street. The hospital, unable to stop the spread of the bacteria on its own, brought in a foreign company to disinfect everything in the building. [/restrict]
