Resistance to bloodstream infections, lack of cleanliness and overcrowding in hospitals are among the contributing factors of MRSA, timesonline.co.uk reported consultant microbiologist Hajo Grundmann as saying. Malta has one of the highest rates of the antibiotic resistant infection together with Britain, Cyprus and Portugal.

As a doctor who has worked in Britain and Holland, Hajo Grundmann could not have a better insight on why the two countries are so far apart in the battle against the superbug MRSA. Holland, along with Norway, has emerged as the nation with the lowest rate of MRSA in Europe.

In Norway and Holland less than 1 per cent of all bloodstream infections are drug resistant, while in Britain the figure is 44 per cent. Figures compiled by the European Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance System, which Grundmann co-ordinates, show that Britain has higher rates of the superbug.

Grundmann said the differing levels of cleanliness between Britain and Holland were apparent to anyone entering the hospitals. “Levels of cleanliness in Britain are on the low side when compared to other European standards. Cleanliness explains only a proportion of the transmission of MRSA but it is important because it is a marker for diligence and commitment and shows that staff are taking their work seriously.”

Grundmann also said that overcrowded British hospitals were a big contributor to infection. British hospitals have fewer single rooms and so isolating all infected patients is impossible. As a result, patients with MRSA need to be cared for on communal wards and risk passing on the bug.

He said the proximity of beds, the high percentage of beds occupied at any given time and the rapid turnover of patients fuelled the high rates of MRSA in British hospitals.

Ironically, the process of screening patients for MRSA and isolating those found to be carrying the bug, a technique known as “search and destroy”, was devised in Britain. But, in the mid-1990s when the MRSA rates began to soar, managers found it impossible to isolate all infected patients — there simply was not enough space, timesonline.co.uk reported.

The latest MRSA bloodstream infection figures, released last week, show that there were 3,391 cases in England from April to September 2006, down 5 per cent from the same period in 2005.

However, the figures appear to have reached a plateau, with the rate of decline being too slow to meet the target set in November 2004 by John Reid, the then health secretary, of a 50 per cent reduction in MRSA cases before April 2008.

The number of deaths from MRSA in England and Wales has increased from about 50 in 1993 to 1,170 in 2004.

Source: timesonline.co.uk