A new hospital superbug resistant to all antibiotics could be killing hundreds of patients, experts have warned.
The infection, known as 'Steno', is on the increase and could be harder to tackle than MRSA and C.difficile.
The bug spreads almost exclusively in hospitals through wet areas such as taps and shower heads, and is thought to kill a third of the people it infects after entering the bloodstream.
Chemotherapy patients, including children, are among those most in danger, because the infection spreads through ventilation tubes and catheters.
There are about 1,000 reports of Steno blood poisoning in Britain each year, according to today's study by the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, near Cambridge.
Research leader Dr Matthew Avison said: 'This is the latest in an ever-increasing list of antibiotic-resistant hospital superbugs.
'The degree of resistance it shows is very worrying. Strains are now emerging that are resistant to all available antibiotics.'
He urged drug companies to invest more in a 'new generation' of treatments for robust bugs such as Steno – full name Stenotrophomonas maltophilia – which are rarer than MRSA and C.diff but tougher to treat.
MRSA is thought to have caused 1,652 deaths in 2006, up from 51 in 1993. Clostridium difficile was mentioned on 6,480 death certificates in 2006, a 72 per cent rise on 2005.
Steno sticks to catheters or medical tubes and grows into a so-called 'biofilm'. When the catheter is next flushed, the bug enters the patient's bloodstream and can cause septicaemia, especially if their immune system has already been weakened.
The onus is on both patients and healthcare professionals to do more to keep equipment clean, Dr Avison told the Genome Biology journal.
In a statement the Department of Health said: 'Stenotrophomonas does not cause infections in healthy people but can cause infections in patients who are seriously ill with other conditions, especially lung problems.'
A spokesman insisted 'clean and safe treatment in the NHS' was a top priority, saying an extra £270million a year would be spent on tackling infections by 2010.
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