§ Lord Hanningfieldasked Her Majesty's Government:
How many (a) babies under 18 months, and (b) pre-school infants have (i) contracted and (ii) died from methicillin resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in each of the past 10 years. [HL985]
§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Lord Warner)The Health Protection Agency's voluntary reporting system is the only national dataset providing information by age on cases of methicillin resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bloodstream infections. The HPA has provided data for all children aged under five years, as in the following table, but cannot provide data by the age grouping requested (under 18 months).
Number of reports of MRSA blood isolates in England in children aged under five years Year Number of reports 1995 7 1996 27 1997 23 1998 31 1999 49 2000 50 2001 56 2002 59 2003 71 2004* 52 * provisional
Data source
Health Protection Agency
Data on deaths from MRSA are not available from routine mortality statistics. The only available information is from a study by the Office for National Statistics which reviewed death certificates from 1993–2002. The data from this study for children aged under five are shown in the following table but were not available in respect of the age group of children under 18 months.
180WA
Number of death certificates mentioning MRSA as a contributory factor or underlying cause for children aged under five years Year Number of reports 1993 0 1994 0 1995 0 1996 0 1997 1
Number of death certificates mentioning MRSA as a contributory factor or underlying cause for children aged under five years Year Number of reports 1998 4 1999 1 2000 0 2001 1 2002 1 Data supplied by Office for National Statistics