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ATLANTA, GA, United States (UPI) -- A mutant strain of diarrhea is pushing the condition`s ongoing epidemic, the national Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta said.
Severe Clostridium difficile diarrheal disease is caused by a bug carried unknowingly by about 3 percent of the U.S. population, WebMD.com said Friday. Most antibiotics that kill normal bacteria don`t affect C. diff, which is attacked by normal bacteria found in the body.
Once confined to elderly, hospitalized patients, the new strain is infecting young, non-hospitalized people, WebMD.com said.
Symptoms range from mild diarrhea to life-threatening colon infection, WebMD.com said. The new strain can produce up to 20 times more of the toxins that normal C. diff produces, the medical Web site said.
Scientists said several factors may have caused the bug to mutate, WebMD.com said. These include the bug`s becoming resistant to commonly used antibiotics and certain heartburn drugs being linked to C. diff infections. Or, possibly, a new bug is moving across the globe.
Scientists at the University of Illinois have studied the antibiotic vancomycin`s effect on the new C. diff strain, WebMD.com said. So far, the mutant strain hasn`t shown resistance to the antibiotic.
Copyright 2006 by United Press International
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AN elderly patient has died after contracting a super bug in Warrington Hospital - weeks before all medical emergencies are transferred from Halton.
Although John Lomas, 83, died of septicaemia, a urinary tract infection and a heart complication on September 2, the doctor who certified his death said the super bug was a contributory factor.
Five days after his admission, his family was told he had a gut infection - when he had in fact contracted clostridium difficile, a super bug.
"Older people are very susceptible to this," said his son, John. "But we weren't told it was infectious and my 81-year-old mother was visiting him.Despite an admission by North Cheshire Hospitals NHS Trust that whenever possible patients with clostridium difficile are nursed in a side room with infection control precautions', Mr Lomas was a patient in an open ward.
Hospital bosses have promised a full investigation.
A hospital spokesman, said: "The trust should like to reassure all patients and visitors to Warrington Hospital that it does take clostridium difficile very seriously."
The closure of five medical and surgical wards at Halton Hospital started on Sunday as emergency medical care is being transferred to Warrington.
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Bacterial disease turning up in pregnant women
TORONTO (Oct 13, 2006)
Cases of C. difficile-associated disease, once found almost exclusively in elderly hospitalized people, seem to be cropping up increasingly in groups not thought to be at high risk.
The latest? Pregnant women.
Research presented at a major infectious disease conference yesterday suggests a possible rise in Clostridium difficile cases in healthy pregnant women or women who have recently given birth -- a finding that is baffling both to doctors who treated the women and experts studying the disease.
"I don't want to raise an alarm about this because it's still obviously relatively uncommon," lead author Dr. Judith O'Donnell said in an interview.
She was at a loss to explain why pregnancy might put women at higher risk of developing C. difficile.
C. difficile is a bacterium which can grow out of control in the gut if the normal bacterial balance is thrown off by use of antibiotics or some other factor.
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