Edward Hospital.

Now two victims are in isolation after contracting the typhoid-like stomach infection VRE -- which is resistant to all known antibiotics -- after being treated in North America.

King Edward chief of staff Dr. Clarence James said: "It kills people with low resistance -- if you are very sick and you get the bug you can be finished off.'' A total of three cases have been identified at the hospital in just over a year -- all of them patients who have previously been treated abroad.

The two current sufferers -- who have not been identified for reasons of medical confidentiality -- are being kept apart from other patients.

And all visitors and staff coming into contact with them are gowned and masked to cut the risk of the infection spreading.

Dr. James said that the two patients are not ill because of the presence of the bacteria but had been hospitalised for other reasons and the bug discovered in their stomachs.

Hospital pathologist Dr. Keith Cunningham said: "The infection may spread to other areas of the patients' bodies or indeed may be passed by contact with staff and visitors and get into another patient in the hospital.'' But he stressed that strict precautions meant there was little danger to other patients -- and that no staff had become carriers of the bug.

He said: "We don't have a resistant population of this infection in our hospital and we are trying to keep it that way.

"Whenever a case is picked up all staff members who have been in contact are tested to see if they are carriers -- we haven't found any.'' Dr. Cunningham added the bug, which causes diarrhoea and enteritis, is only harmful to people already seriously weakened by illness.

He said: "It's only dangerous to people who are ill and on antibiotics and susceptible to organisms which can live in antibiotics.

"The secondary danger is someone who isn't ill but who may harbour it for a short period and transfer it.'' Doctors battle killer virus The bug -- vancomycin resistant enterococci -- lives in the large intestine and was first identifed in the US and Canada around four years ago.

The first case in Bermuda was identified just over a year ago and there have been no other cases until the current two.

Experts are unsure whether it had been present before that time and not identified or whether it is a mutant version of other types of bacteria which developed after the latest generation of powerful antibiotics came into use.

Dr. James said the bug had spread to other patients and staff in hospitals abroad with "disastrous'' consequences.

But he added that all patients entering the King Edward who have been in hospital abroad are routinely isolated and screened for VRE.

If found to be carriers, they are isolated until they test negative for the bug or discharged.

And he said: "So far the measures taken have been successful in the management of this problem.''