Europe in Grip of Super Bug - Not India !!

Europe is now in the grip of an old superbug that seems to have become more potent. The deadly drug-resistant superbug Clostridium difficile (C-diff) is causing an increasing number of infections across Europe.

In an Europe-wide study, scientists have found infections due to C-diff being widespread. Incidence in hospitals has risen to 4.1 per 10,000 patient days in 2008 from 2.45 per 10,000 patient days in 2005.

What's worse, when the team of scientists followed the patients up with infection after three months, they found that 22% had died, and C-diff infection had played a part in 40% of those deaths.

The study has been published in the British medical journal, The Lancet, on Tuesday.

C-diff is a spore-forming bacterium, which was discovered in 1978 and found to be the cause of antibiotic-associated diarrhoea and colitis.

The recent study revealed that C-diff infection rates were high in Finland, Poland and Britain, which had rates of 19.1, 12.5 and 10.4 per 10,000 patient days, respectively. It is lower in France and Hungary, which had incidences of 2.1 and 2.0 per 10,000 patient days, respectively.

When the normal bacteria that live in the colon are disturbed -- usually due to antibiotic treatment -- and a patient ingests C-diff spores, the bacteria can multiply and release the toxins.

Some experts claim it now rivals the superbug MRSA as one of the leading threats to humans. Since its discovery, C-diff has grown increasingly resistant to antibiotics.


Ed Kuijper of Leiden University Medical Center in The Netherlands, who led the study with his colleague Martijn Bauer, said, "It is clearly on the rise. There is also a huge variation of incidence in different European countries. Overuse and misuse of antibiotics in recent decades have fueled a rise in drug-resistant superbugs like C-diff."

Earlier this year, scientists warned that a new so-called superbug from India -- New Delhi metallo-beta-lactamase (NDM-1) -- could spread around the world.

"Antibiotic resistance remains a serious threat to patient safety, reducing options for treatment and increasing lengths of hospital stay, as well as patient morbidity and mortality," said Marc Sprenger, director of European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC).

The study was collaboration among 106 laboratories in 34 European countries. Each hospital tested stool samples of patients with suspected C-diff infection that developed three or more days after being admitted to hospital.

A case was defined when, subsequently, toxins were identified in stool samples. Detailed clinical data and stool isolates were collected for the first 10 cases in each hospital. After three months, the clinical data was followed up.

"Decreasing antibiotic use in hospitals has shown decreasing incidence of infections," said Dr Dominique Monnet of ECDC.

Symptoms of C-diff include profuse diarrhoea and abdominal pain and distention of the abdomen. An infection is also frequently accompanied by fever, nausea and dehydration. In some rare cases, blood may be present in the stool. The infection is spread by spores that contaminate the hospital environment and hands of health care workers who can transmit the spores to patients.

Read more: Europe in grip of new superbug, not Indian - The Times of India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Europe-in-grip-of-new-superbug-not-Indian/articleshow/6942828.cms#ixzz15lMfmwHi

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