Malda, Apr 6: Nine infants died within a space of 12 hours at the Malda Medical College and Hospital in the district where barely two months back 20 newborns had died.

Of the nine infants, who died between Wednesday evening and Thursday morning, seven were aged between 26 days and one year while two others were between the ages of six and eight months, hospital sources said.

Six of them died in the newly-opened Sick Newborn Care Unit in the hospital where only critical patients are admitted. Three others died in the general paediatric ward.

All of them were brought from rural hospitals with complications of low birth weight and varying degrees of breathing trouble.

West Bengal has been beset with children’s deaths in hospitals across several districts since early last year.

Between October 25 and 28, 2012, 16 children died at the B.C. Roy Children’s Hospital, the only children’s referral hospital in Kolkata.

Earlier in July 18 of the same year, 18 infants had died there.

The Burdwan Medical College and Hospital had reported 12 infant deaths on October 27-28, 2012.