WHO investigates Fiji Hospital's bacteria outbreak

The World Health Organisation (WHO) will investigate this week the recent deaths of four babies at Fiji's Colonial War Memorial Hospital in Suva from a suspected bacterial infection, China's Xinhua news agency reported.

The four babies had died between May 24 and June 15 at the CWM Hospital's Newborn Intensive Care Unit (NICU).

A WHO investigator will arrive in Fiji on Tuesday to investigate after there was a second outbreak of acinetobacter baumannii at the hospital.

Dr James Fong, CWM Hospital's acting medical superintendent, said the ministry would meet WHO officials on Monday to brief them on the situation.

Fong said the WHO team would also look through the whole system and the hospital's infection control measures to review how Fiji could reduce the risk of the bug contaminating people who were sick.

An outbreak occurred between the last quarter of 2016 and early 2017 at CWM Hospital, forcing its closure for a few weeks before it re-opened for admission.

Fong said the quarantine process at NICU was ongoing and there had not been any other admission since the detection of the outbreak.

He said NICU was still under quarantine and nobody was there.

-- BERNAMA