Serratia sepsis outbreak

In 2015 eleven blood culture positive cases were identified for Serratia species in Patan Hospital (PH): six rubidaea and five marcescens. The S. rubidaea were identified to be from three neonates and concentrated in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) in the months of June and July. The S. marcescens were predominantly found to be from the paediatric ward between the months of September, October and November. Even-though the source of the outbreak was not identified through environmental sampling we concluded that due to the chaos created by two massive earthquakes, there were deficits in hygienic behavior together with the lack of standard infection control measures that contributed to this outbreak.