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A superbug appears to be shifting to another.
As it subsided the threat of a superbug in hospital, another rears its head, suggests a new study.

A dangerous drug-resistant infection known as MRSA, is often the greatest threat to patients in hospitals and other health facilities. But infections of Clostridium difficile-_C diff_ are surpassing those of MRSA, the study found in 28 hospitals in the Southeast.
As it subsided the threat of a superbug in hospital, another rears its head, suggests a new study.
A dangerous drug-resistant infection known as MRSA, is often the greatest threat to patients in hospitals and other health facilities. But infections of Clostridium difficile-_C diff_ are surpassing those of MRSA, the study found in 28 hospitals in the Southeast.
“I think everyone thinks about MRSA as a serious threat,” said Dr. Becky Miller, a specialist in infectious diseases at the Medical Center of Duke University. Saturday presented the results of their research in Atlanta at a medical conference on infections in health facilities. “But C. difficile deserves more attention,” he said.
MRSA, or Staphylococcus aureus resistant to methicillin, is a bacterium that can not be treated with common antibiotics. It is usually harmless while in the skin, but becomes deadly when it enters the bloodstream. It penetrates through wounds, intravenous tubes and other routes.
C-diff, also resistant to some antibiotics, are found in the colon and can cause diarrhea and a more serious intestinal condition known as colitis. It is spread by spores in feces. The spores are difficult to kill with common household cleaners or products for hand hygiene with alcohol-based, so that some of the measures for MRSA disinfectants do not work with C-diff.
Traditionally, few deaths have been reported because of C-diff, but there has been a more dangerous variant in the last ten years. Anyway MRSA is generally regarded as a threat more lethal, with about 18,000 deaths annually health news.
The new study reviewed infection rates in community hospitals in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia in 2008 and 2009. He found that the rate of C-diff infections acquired in hospitals was 25% higher than those of MRSA. Hospitals accounted for 847 C-diff infections and MRSA 680 health news.
Miller also reported that C-diff in hospitals increased since 2007, whereas MRSA has declined since 2005.
Last year, a government report noted a decline in MRSA infections in a study of 600 intensive care units in hospitals. MRSA infections in the blood associated with IV lines fell by almost 50% between 1997 and 2007, according to data reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
C-diff appears to be increasing in recent years although the trend is not uniform, because some hospitals reported a decrease.
Source: health news

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