Paul Cosford, the head of Public Health England (PHE), said an urgent recall had been ordered after a contaminated batch of the food was suspected of causing the septicaemia that killed a baby at a neonatal intensive care unit at London’s Guy’s and St Thomas’ hospital.
Another 14 premature babies in six separate hospitals in London and the south-east all suffered food poisoning after receiving drips containing a batch of liquid feed from a specialist company based in north-west London, ITH Pharma Limited. They are responding to antibiotics but are described as poorly by PHE.
The emergency developed rapidly over the weekend with one baby after another falling ill, triggering a frantic search to identify the source of the bacteria causing the life-threatening septicaemia.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Thursday, Cosford said the feed was the “most likely cause” of the infection and that an urgent investigation was under way into what went wrong. The feed was infected with a bacterium known as Bacillus cereus, PHE said.
One baby has died while 14 others were left fighting for their lives with blood poisoning after being given the liquid feed in NHS neonatal care units at six different hospitals.
A public health alert was issued by health chiefs on Wednesday evening after it emerged all the newborns’ had been given a nutrition drip manufactured by London-based ITH Pharma Ltd.
Medical regulators are investigating an incident which occurred last Thursday at the company’s London manufacturing plant.
FoodWorld 