Two more premature infants who were in the neonatal intensive care unit at the state's only public hospital have died after being infected in a bacterial outbreak in the unit last month, state health officials said Tuesday.

The infants were infected six weeks ago at University Hospital in Newark and died last week, but the state Health Department said it was not notified of the deaths until Monday.

They bring the total deaths to three in an outbreak that has infected four babies with Acinetobacter baumanii, a type of bacteria that is a common cause of hospital-acquired infections.

The infants had many health problems due to being premature, and the bacterial infection may not have been the cause of death, the Health Department noted. Those with weakened immune systems, as these babies were, are particularly susceptible; healthy people are usually not affected.

The outbreak:Premature baby dies as bacterial infection spreads at Newark hospital

Adenovirus outbreak:Children return to Wanaque facility where 11 have died

The delay in notifying state officials of the deaths prompted the department to send an inspection team to Newark on Tuesday “to investigate the hospital's internal notification policies [and] governance," as well as any other factors that may have impeded the "reporting of deaths of cases during an ongoing outbreak,” the Health Department said.

The breakdown in communication was so bad that “the hospital's own infection control program was not aware of the deaths” on Monday, the statement said.

There have been no new cases in the unit since October, a hospital spokesperson said. “We have worked diligently since the Acinetobacter baumannii bacteria was discovered in our neonatal intensive care unit to control the outbreak," the hospital's statement said. "We continue to reinforce proper procedures and protocols with our team.”

Only one of the four infants infected with the bacteria has survived; that baby was discharged from the hospital at the end of October. When the outbreak was discovered last month, one of the four babies had been transferred to another hospital for medical treatment of complications related to being born prematurely and died at that hospital.

State health officials on Oct. 25 ordered corrective steps at the troubled hospital that included the hiring of a certified infection control practitioner to guide the facility's efforts.

University Hospital's outbreak comes amid an ongoing crisis involving unrelated viral outbreaks among children at two long-term care facilities. Eleven children have died among 35 people who have been infected with adenovirus at the Wanaque Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation in the last two months, and 13 children have been infected with a milder strain of adenovirus at the Voorhees Pediatric Facility in Camden County.

Earlier this year, Gov. Phil Murphy ordered an independent monitor to oversee operations at University Hospital, citing concerns about patient safety, finances and a management decision to phase out pediatric services.

Email: washburn@northjersey.com