Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many people in the UK have contracted mycolobacterium chimera in each of the last three years.

Public Health England has been notified of two cases of Mycobacterium chimaera invasive, disseminated or surgical site infection diagnosed in 2014, 11 cases in 2015, and six cases in 2016. This information can be accessed:

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/mycobacterial-infections-associated-with-heater-cooler-units

Due to the long incubation period of this infection, the exposure to the infection may have been in a different year to that in which it was diagnosed. No cases are known to have arisen from surgical exposure after January 2015.