The culprit of the death of the three very premature babies in December 2013 is now designated: it is an enterobacterium called “Rouxiella chamberiensis” by the scientific community. Until now unknown, this new bacterium has just been identified by the International Committee of Bacterial Taxonomy. The discovery, made public by the Institut Pasteur, is reported in the specialist journal, the International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology.
The sequencing of its entire genome has enabled researchers to observe that this bacterium evolves under rather unusual conditions: it proliferates at a temperature of 4 ° C while other bacteria in the digestive tract of humans or in principle cannot do so. below 8 ° C. In addition, it goes into latency (dormancy) and stops growing at 37 ° C.
To avoid a new case like the one that plagued the Chambéry hospital at the end of 2013, researchers from the Cellule d’Intervention Biologique d’Urgence (CIBU) at the Pasteur Institute will now set about developing a test. specific detection of this bacterium.
Their expertise should be brought to the investigation into the deaths of the three infantsin the neonatal intensive care unit at Chambéry hospital. Objective: to obtain answers and understand how the contamination of the nutrition pockets could have occurred.
In January 2014, the Minister of Health Marisol Touraine had affirmed that “the most probable hypothesis” to explain the deaths of the three babies was “a isolated production accident which occurred on November 28 at the Marette laboratory during the preparation of the bags intended for the Chambéry hospital center. “Involved in the investigation, the Marette laboratory ended up suspending its activity.
