A NEWBORN baby and her mother were the first patients to have been diagnosed with a potentially deadly superbug on a hospital ward in six months, according to health chiefs.

Claire Still, 23, from Four Elms, near Edenbridge, and her baby Rachael, who was born on Monday, December 10, by Caesarean section, were in the Gordon Ward Premature Unit at Pembury Hospital, when they were both diagnosed with MRSA and moved to a single room. The ward was deep cleaned.

Managers at the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust said the strain of the bug was not hospital acquired. About one in three people in the community carry MRSA on their skin or in their nose.

The pair were discharged on Sunday, in time for Christmas. Dr Sara Mumford, the trust’s director of infection prevention and control, said: “We were disappointed because this is the first case we have had on this ward in six months and we have been working extremely hard to reduce such infections.”