Scabies at Mount Carmel

About 15 patients at Mount Carmel Hospital have been diagnosed with the contagious skin infection scabies.

Precautions were taken to control the outbreak and avoid it from spreading, the Community Care Secretariat said in yesterday.

A secretariat spokesman said the first cases of scabies were diagnosed on Tuesday.

The outbreak is believed to have started after a patient contracted the infection while out on leave from the hospital for community care. Scabies is a skin infection caused by mites that breaks out among humans and other animals and is spread by direct contact with infected people.

The mites burrow into the skin and deposit their eggs, forming a burrow that looks like a pencil mark.

In October, 71 people were diagnosed with scabies, with the first cases breaking out at a home for the elderly in Sa Maison.