Superbug cases on the rise
The number of people admitted to hospital with a dangerous intestinal superbug has been growing by more than 10,000 cases a year in the US. That's the finding of a study based on a sample of more than 36 million annual discharges from non-governmental US hospitals.
Dr Marya Zilberberg, a University of Massachusetts researcher and lead author of the study to be published in Emerging Infectious Diseases, says it played a role in nearly 300,000 hospital admissions in 2005, more than double the number in 2000.
The infection, Clostridium difficile, is found in the colon and can cause diarrhoea and colitis, a more serious intestinal condition. It's spread by spores in faeces that survive most household cleaners and antibacterial soaps and is resistant to certain antibiotics.
The study concluded that 2.3 per cent of the cases in 2004 were fatal - about 5,500 deaths. AP
Look on the light side
