The authorities are launching an investigation into the deaths of at least 18 patients at the October 12th University Hospital in Madrid.
The newspaper El Pais reports that at least 18 people died as a direct result of a bacterial infection at the hospital in an epidemic which affected around 250 people in total. Of the 250 patients affected by the bacteria, 100 subsequently died although only 18 were as a direct result of infection, in the rest of the cases the bacteria was a contributing factor.
The directors of the hospital deny that 18 people died as a direct result of infection by the bacteria which appeared in February 2006 and took twenty months to eradicate.