29 October 2007

Auckland CIty Hospital - Vancomycin-resistant enterococci

Over the past two months the ADHB has been going through the ‘stamp it out” phase of its infection control plan following a finding of VRE in a patient at Auckland Hospital.

On this discovery, the ADHB immediately implemented its best practice management plan for infection control, which included contact tracing, during which other cases were identified.

As part of this, over the past two months more than 1,000 patients have been tested. Of those people, three have been found to be infected, and 33 found to be carriers. While most would have acquired it in hospital, at least four patients have brought it into the hospital.

It is important for people to understand that being a carrier has no impact on their health. They will not get ill as a result. It essentially is an intestinal bacteria that everyone has – the only difference is that it is more resistant to antibiotics.

There have been isolated patients identified with VRE in New Zealand since 1996, and, as has happened internationally, it was inevitable that it would hit a New Zealand hospital on a wider scale sooner or later.

The ADHB has just completed an intensive hospital-wide cleaning process. To support our aim of eradicating VRE in the hospital, and stamping out further re-occurrences, a surveillance of patients will be completed over the next 2-4 months.

It is also important to note that ADHB has not had any patients die as a direct result of VRE. There have been two patients who had VRE who have died, but these patients had lethal disease irrespective of VRE as well as other more severe infections.

If you compare VRE to MRSA where a small percentage of the people are also carriers, MRSA can cause illness in healthy people, but VRE is highly unlikely to cause illness in healthy people.


Frequently Asked Questions

For further information contact:

Contact Centre
Auckland District Health Board
09 367 0000

Ends