Up to a quarter of the deaths caused by infections contracted by patients in hospitals could be avoided if the authorities took the necessary precautions, says Prof. Yehuda Carmeli, head of epidemiology and preventive medicine at the Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center.

Between 4,000 and 5,000 patients die in Israel every year from infections they contract in hospitals.

Most of these are caused by around 10 antibiotic-resistant bacteria, also known as "superbugs," that are now common in hospitals worldwide.

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Carmeli explains that the precautions that could save these patients' lives include putting patients who contract the bacterium in quarantine and adhering strictly to hygiene regulations.

Senior doctors say the Health Ministry and hospitals must also increase the number of workers in infection-control units, whose rate compared to the number of patients is up to six times smaller than in certain other Western states.

It is also urgent and essential for the Health Ministry to begin gathering data about infection cases nationwide and monitor them.

The Health Ministry has recently appointed Carmeli head of a steering committee to check the data on the bacterium identified as Klebsiella pneumoniae, which has been discovered in recent months in some hospitals, especially in the central region, and is resistant to some known antibiotic treatments.

The Health Ministry does not have accurate comprehensive figures on the scope of the epidemic, but Carmeli says that between 300 to 500 people were infected by it in 2006.

Some 30 percent of them died, but the connection between their death and the bacterium has not been verified. In contrast, the bacterium had no effect on the illness of about 30 percent.

The bacterium causes urinary tract infections and pneumonia, among other things.

Most of the patients who contract the bacterium are over 70 years old and their health is already compromised by several chronic diseases such as cancer, diabetes and others.

A large number of these patients were hospitalized after staying in senior citizens' homes and hospitals for the chronically ill, and many of them caught the bacterium after a long hospitalization of 25 days and more.

The Health Ministry did not provide official data on the epidemic or about other bacteria that cause infections in hospitals yesterday. According to figures supplied by hospitals, out of 47 patients who contracted the bacterium in the Sourasky Center since 2006, 20 died.

Of the 122 patients at Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer who caught the bacterium, some 30 percent of them died. In Haifa's Rambam Hospital, some 70 patients caught the bacterium. The hospital did not say how many of them died. In Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tikva some 100 patients were infected by the bacterium in 2006.

The Clalit Health Maintenance Organization, which is responsible for about a third of the hospital patients in the country, said it had no data of the scope of patients who contracted infections in hospitals in 2006 or the number of patients who died from them that year.

A senior doctor said the bacterium has been known since 2000 in the United States, mainly in New York, and about a year ago was discovered gradually in some of Israel's larger hospitals.