Front- line hospital staff yesterday continued their battle to control an outbreak of the bacterial superbug vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE), while health officials investigate how the bug found its way into an air conditioning vent in the critical care unit.

Orange Base Hospital critical care director, Dr John Lambert, yesterday said eight confirmed cases of VRE at the unit in December were colonised and not a full blown infection.

Colonisation means the bacteria is on, or in, a person’s body but is not causing the patient to be sick, whereas a VRE infection is far more serious and in the worst cases can lead to death.

“Obviously it can be (lethal) in very extreme circumstances or we wouldn’t be as worried and taking the significant steps that we are,” Dr Lambert said.

A further two patients at the hospital have been diagnosed with the more serious form of VRE in extremely rare circumstances where they were not colonised before developing an infection.

There is also a slim chance patients who are colonised could end up with the potentially life threatening infected status.

There is no known cure to completely rid the colonised or infected patients of VRE, which is most commonly spread by touching a surface such as a hospital bed or table that has the bacteria on it.

The outbreak is contained to the hospital’s high dependency unit of the critical care section.

Investigations into how traces of VRE were found near the air vent are ongoing however officials believe the bacteria was not a new airborne strain, but rather ‘droplet-borne’.

Dr Lambert said the investigation was being carried out by “the best of experts” who are working to resolve the problem.

NSW Health Minister John Della Bosca has been informed of the situation.

More information on VRE can be found at http://www.health.nsw.gov.au/factsheets/general/vre.html.