A baby unit was forced to close after 13 of the tots were found to be carrying hospital superbugs.

Three babies at the Trevor Mann Baby Unit at the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton were found to be carrying Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA) on their skin.

Another ten were carrying Vancomycin Resistant Enterococci (VRE).

Enterococcus is a bacteria usually found in human faeces that can cause infections including meningitis and VRE is a strain which cannot be killed with antibiotics.

In March, inspectors found that parts of the unit were not being cleaned properly and the unit's cleaning schedules are now being reviewed.

None of the babies became ill as a result of being exposed to the superbugs, which were on their skin and not in their blood.

A new strategy for reducing infections is being introduced by Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals' NHS Trust, which runs the hospital, because of concerns about the number of patients picking up infections. The Royal Sussex's record on MRSA infections has been improving.

There were 41 cases at the trust during the last quarter of 2005/6 but the figure is expected to drop to 27 for the first quarter of this financial year.

At a board meeting yesterday, medical director Matthew Fletcher said the infection only caused illness if it got into patients' blood.

He said: "Some of us in this room have got MRSA now and are carrying it around.

"It's not an issue unless it gets to the wrong place at the wrong time."

He said the increase in the number of patients with MRSA during the winter could have been down to people bringing a new strain of the infection into the hospital.

The board also agreed to a series of measures to stamp out infections and to try to reduce the number of cases by a fifth every quarter.

A forum is being set up where staff can discuss whether measures introduced to reduce infections are working.

Infection control experts from Guy's and St Thomas's Hospital in London have visited the trust to advise on how they reduced the number of their patients picking up infections.

The trust is also working to reduce the number of patients contracting viral gastroenteritis, which affected 315 patients during the last financial year, 170 of them at the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton and 145 at the Princess Royal Hospital in Haywards Heath.