SHANGHAI - PATIENTS at Chinese hospitals have a one in 10 chance of being infected with a new disease in addition to whatever they came in to be treated for, a state newspaper reported on Wednesday.

The nearly five million people who get a new sickness at hospitals adds a cost of 10 billion yuan (US$1.95 billion) to the health care system, the China Daily said, citing senior medical experts.

The most prevalent infection at Chinese hospitals is MRSA - or Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus - a bacterium which health officials said causes half of the total infections.

Though most MRSA bugs are not serious, some can be life-threatening because its ability to mutate makes it difficult to treat.

MRSA has been linked to the deaths of 18,650 people in the United States in 2005 and the number of deaths is rising.

China's vice health minister Huang Jiefu urged hospital workers to better follow hygiene standards, underscoring that most infections were largely avoidable if standards are enforced and bad practices eliminated. -- AFP