A new superbug that scientists believe is brought into Britain through the food chain is infecting about 30,000 people a year, according to government experts.

Research has found that between 10% and 14% of those who are infected with the drug-resistant form of E-coli die within 30 days of catching the bug, which would suggest 3,000-4,200 deaths. This would be double the number of deaths from MRSA.

Unlike traditional forms of E-coli, the drug-resistant strain Extended-Spectrum Beta-Lacta-mase (ESBL) affects healthy young adults as well as the elderly. Doctors say the Health Protection Agency (HPA), the government body responsible for protecting the public from infections, has failed to recognise the scale of the problem and needs to do more to control the spread of the bacteria.

Dr Graham Harvey, consultant microbiologist at Shrewsbury & Telford Hospitals NHS Trust, said: “We need to be concerned about this. It is a significant cause of mortality. It is something that has been missed nationally, and by the HPA in particular. Some form of surveillance needs to be put in place.”

Dr Albert Lessing, director of infectious diseases at Heather-wood and Wexham Park Hospitals NHS Trust in Berkshire, said that two years ago he was treating hardly any cases. Now he sees six cases of E-coli ESBL a day.

“In the past month we have seen two men in their fifties with the organism in their blood. Previously, E-coli in the blood of a 50-year-old man was unheard of. We have also seen infections in a couple of women in their late thirties or early forties. This is a new phenomenon which is poorly understood,” Lessing said.

The bacterium causes urinary infections but can also lead to blood poisoning. Hospitals can report E-coli ESBL blood infections to the HPA on a voluntary basis, but there is no system to report the more common urinary infections. In the absence of a national surveillance system, concerned doctors at individual hospitals have set up their own recording systems.

Last week Harvey and colleagues, including Professor Peter Hawkey of the HPA West Midlands Public Health Laboratory, presented their research at an international microbiology conference in Chicago, which showed that 14% of people who become infected with E-coli ESBL die within 30 days. HPA scientists estimate there are about 30,000 cases of infection due to ESBL every year in Britain. The scale of the problem will feature in an investigation by Tonight with Trevor McDonald that will be broadcast tomorrow on ITV1.

Professor Peter Collignon, director of the infectious diseases unit and microbiology department at Canberra hospital, Aus-tralia, believed the widespread use of antibiotics in cattle, pigs and chicken had caused drug resistant strains of E-coli to develop in meat and poultry. E-coli ESBL is believed to be brought into Britain through imported chicken, although the link has not been proven.

Doctors try to hold back so-called critically important antibiotics to treat patients with serious diseases for which there are few alternatives. But Collignon, who advises the World Health Organisation on the international spread of E-coli ESBL, said these drugs are being used in the food chain in many parts of the world.

“We restrict the use of antibiotics in most people because we know that when we use any antibiotic, resistance develops. We hold back an important group of antibiotics, called third and fourth generation cepha-losporins, for the sickest people. I find it perverse that we are using these types of drugs in food animals,” Collignon said.

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