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MONDAY Books on family health	Super-bug threat to children March 22 - A growing number of British children are succumbing to hospital super-bug infections, researchers warned today. Barely a decade ago childhood infection was rare - just four cases were diagnosed in 1990. But by the year 2001, as many as 77 children were infected with the drug-resistant MRSA bug, according to the research reported in the Archives of Disease in Childhood. The researchers, from the Health Protection Agency and St George's Hospital, London, suspect the bulk of the increase may have occurred amongs premature infants on special care baby units. But, writing in the same journal, Dr Jim Gray, of Birmingham Children's Hospital, UK, warns that MRSA is circulating in the community in the USA - and accounts for as many as 60 per cent of infections with the staphylococcus aureus bug. He warns that common childhood infections, such as impetigo, may become hard to treat. But Dr Georgia Duckworth, an MRSA expert of the Health Protection Agency, said: "Although MRSA amongst adults has been increasing steadily since the early 1990s, we are now seeing for the first time evidence of an emerging problem in children. "The levels of MRSA infection in children are still very low relative to older age groups, but we must take steps to ensure that MRSA infection in children does not increase to the same levels as adults. "Children who succumb to MRSA infections are usually very sick already and therefore vulnerable to infection and it is often difficult to tell where the infection was acquired." Archives of Disease in Childhood 2004; 89:378-9
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