Deaths from UK hospital superbug rising - report

Deaths involving the hospital "superbug" MRSA in England and Wales have risen in recent years, according to a report on Thursday.

Mentions of MRSA in death certificates rose 19 percent between 2002 and 2003 to 955, it found. But the report, by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), said some of that increase could be due to better reporting.

MRSA (methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus) is resistant to drugs and can cause skin infections, sepsis and toxic shock.

Chief Nursing Officer Chris Beasley, said there was no one simple solution to preventing infection, but fighting the bug was a top priority for the government.

"By improving reporting of MRSA like this, it will help us identify avoidable factors and learn useful lessons," she said in a statement.

A report last July said thousands of people in Britain continued to die each year of hospital-acquired infections, partly because doctors and nurses were not washing their hands often enough.

Public spending watchdog the National Audit Office (NAO) said at the time that despite government efforts to raise the issue's profile, few advances had been made in tackling the rise of superbug infections since it last examined the issue in 2000.

It blamed poor training, bad hygiene, hospital cleanliness problems and the overprescribing of antibiotics.