THE bugs that have been linked to at least two new-born deaths at the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) of the University Hospital of the West Indies could be the Klebsiella and Serratia, the Jamaica Observer has been informed.

Medical experts, who yesterday informed the Observer of the bugs, said that babies had began falling ill at the hospital toward the end of last month, resulting in the NICU accepting only emergency cases.

According to experts, Klebsiella, can be transmitted from mother to child so it would be hard to determine whether this bug was acquired at the NICU.

However, the medical source said, Serratia is usually a hospital-acquired bug and that a determination will have to be made as to whether or not the University Hospital was the source of origin.

Health Minister Dr Fenton Ferguson is scheduled to address the issue at a press conference on Tuesday.

The ministry issued a release on the weekend, stating that Ferguson held an emergency meeting on Saturday with a team from the hospital, the Ministry of Health and the South East Regional Health Authority to review the situation regarding the infection.

According to the release, the minister was informed at the meeting that the bug had been identified and is being “appropriately treated” and that “all necessary steps are in place to control the spread of the infection”. The release didn’t name the bug.

The minister also said that the Pan American Health Organisation and the Caribbean Public Health Agency are on standby to provide any additional assistance that may be required, if needed.

The release, however, did not say how many babies fell ill, how many had died and when the outbreak started.

Yesterday, Marlene Malahoo-Forte, the Opposition spokesperson on health, chided the health minister, saying that vital information was not flowing from the ministry as it should, and that the public has not heard half of what’s going on at hospitals.

“The health sector is sick but the attention is somewhere else,” Malahoo-Forte told the Observer.