Tel Aviv, (March 8) A deadly bacterium which has developed resistance to antibiotics and infected up to 500 Israelis in the past year, killing several, is causing a health scare in Israel.

So far deaths from the Klebsiella bacterium, believed still responsive to antibiotics in Europe, have been reported only in the US, in addition to Israel, Professor Yehuda Carmeli said Wednesday.

Carmeli heads a team tasked with identifying patients with the bacterium, and isolating them. He told DPA that at least 30 percent of those infected had died.

Health Minister Ya’akov Ben-Yizri said efforts were underway to contain the bacterium through quarantine and increased sanitation in hospitals.

The outbreak has so far been confined to hospitals, where the bacterium is transferred either through doctors and nurses who do not scrub thoroughly enough between patients, or because people, already susceptible and weaker than normal, touch the surface of equipment previously handled by others with the bacterium.

The Klebsiella strain is normally found in the mouth, skin and intestines. It may cause pneumonia, though it is more commonly involved in hospital-acquired wound and urinary tract infections.

Overuse of antibiotics among people and cattle in the West has led to an increase in bacteria which are resistant to the drugs, causing concern among health experts that modern medicine will find itself helpless in the face of a growing number of bacteria-induced diseases previously considered non-fatal and treatable.(DPA)