MRSA, Staph, Staff, Mersa, Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus Symptoms & Treatment

Quick Test to Fight C Diff

Along with MRSA, Clostridium difficile is proving to be a major problem for hospitals worldwide. Triggered by antibiotic use, Clostridium difficile is the main cause of hospital-acquired diarrhoea and, for the elderly in particular, can be fatal. In the UK, for example, more than 50,000 inpatients aged over 65 have C. difficile infections. In addition, community acquired infection seems to be rising with more than 15,000 cases a year, three-quarters of whom had not been in hospital.^1,2 Since culture, the gold standard for testing takes 2-3 days, Inverness Medical has introduced two new rapid tests. TechLab^® TOX A/B Quik Chek and BioStar^® OIA^® CdTOX AB are specifically designed to enable swift diagnosis and subsequent isolation of patients, reducing cross contamination in clinical areas.

 

Delivering results in minutes, both tests qualitatively detect C. difficile Toxins A & B directly from human faecal specimens. Toxin A is an enterotoxin which appears to be responsible for the clinical symptoms of diarrhoea and colonic inflammation, while Toxin B, potentially the most potent cytotoxin known to man, is responsible for the associated cell destruction. Clinical symptoms of C. difficile associated disease (CDAD) were once thought to be solely due to Toxin A. However, there is growing evidence that Toxin B may also play an important role in the pathogenesis of C. difficile. According to Inverness Medical’s VP International Business, David Walton, it is becoming mandatory in an increasing number of countries to use a test that detects both toxins: “We believe the BioStar OIA and TechLab rapid tests offer the physician two valuable new options to obtain a rapid and accurate diagnosis and initiate appropriate patient management.”

NHS superbug board should have been sacked, say Tories

Link: NHS superbug board should have been sacked, say Tories | Health | SocietyGuardian.co.uk.

Government ministers were last night accused of aggravating the NHS superbug scandal by failing to take charge of the hospitals where 90 people died as soon as the scale of mismanagement became clear. Andrew Lansley, the Conservative shadow health secretary, last night said the three hospitals of the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS trust should have been brought under direct departmental control. In a report on Thursday, the Healthcare Commission said scores of patients died from infection by Clostridium difficile bacteria in Britain's worst outbreak of a hospital superbug. It blamed the trust board for a catalogue of safety lapses that caused the death toll between April 2004 and September 2006. Mr Lansley said the government should have acted to suspend or sack the trust's board as soon as it received an advance copy of the commission's findings in the middle of last week.

90 die in C Diff outbreak

Link: cbs2.com - World Wire.

Nurses who didn't wash their hands and left patients lying in soiled beds were cited in an official report blaming mismanagement for the deaths of 90 people who contracted a bacterial infection in hospitals in southern England. ``Significant failings'' at all levels contributed to infections of more than 1,000 patients at three hospitals, the Healthcare Commission said Thursday. The patients were infected with Clostridium difficile, or C. diff, which can cause diarrhea, colitis and other intestinal problems, officials said. ``The Healthcare Commission has passed the copy of the report to us and that is being reviewed,'' said a spokesman for Kent Police, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with force policy. The report into the spread of the highly contagious bacterium said nurses at three hospitals run by the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS trust were often too busy to wash their hands and left patients in their own excrement.

Clostridium difficile could outstrip MRSA in Irish hospitals

Link: Clostridium difficile could outstrip MRSA in Irish hospitals.

Research findings on a bug which is a major threat to hospital patients and particularly elderly patients, which could outstrip MRSA, will be presented to the Irish Society for Immunology (ISI) Annual Conference at Dublin City University. The symptoms from this bug, which is called Clostridium difficile, range from mild illness to life-threatening colitis. In severely affected patients the inner lining of the colon becomes severely inflamed and sometimes the walls of the colon wear away, causing perforation, which can lead to a life-threatening infection of the abdomen. "The bug is not as well known as MRSA but in recent years it has been linked to twice as many deaths as the more famous deadly superbug. It is vital that we find out as much about this bug as possible to improve our methods of prevention and treatment of this infection" said Dr Loscher.

Irish warn hospitals of C Diff danger

Link: News - headlines.

Research findings on a bug which is a major threat to hospital patients and particularly elderly patients, which could outstrip MRSA, will be presented to the Irish Society for Immunology (ISI) Annual Conference at Dublin City University today. The symptoms from this bug, which is called Clostridium Difficile, range from mild illness to life-threatening colitis. In severely affected patients the inner lining of the colon becomes severely inflamed and sometimes the walls of the colon wear away, causing perforation, which can lead to a life-threatening infection of the abdomen. “The bug is not as well known as MRSA but in recent years it has been linked to twice as many deaths as the more famous deadly superbug. It is vital that we find out as much about this bug as possible to improve our methods of prevention and treatment of this infection” said Dr Loscher.

Louth Hospital neglected C Diff patient

Link: Louth Hospital neglected patient says coroner - Louth Today.

Along with two other elderly hospital parients at the same time, this had been as a result of having contracted the potentially fatal bug known as Clostridium difficile - C diff. There was no significant abatement of the distressing condition, and it fell to Mrs Mack to wash her mother's soiled nightwear. Dr Cook acknowledged his patient's condition worsened because of inappropriate medication and a failure to consider putting her on a drip when when she became undernourished and dehydrated.

C Diff treatment could help MRSA resistance issues

Link: Cork scientists research new treatment to combat bowel infection among the elderly.

Current treatments are largely confined to two potent antibiotics: metronidazole and vancomycin. However, treatment failures and relapses are common using these antibiotics. There is also a risk of spreading antibiotic resistance to other hospital pathogens. The APC research team is investigating the potential of an antimicrobial peptide discovered in Cork as a novel therapeutic for the treatment of CDAD. Lacticin 3147 is produced by a harmless bacterium, Lactococcus lactis, one of a number of bacteria used by cheesemakers for millennia. When lacticin was tested against strains of C. difficile isolated from patients with diarrhoea or inflammatory bowel disease or healthy adults it was shown to be as effective as the antibiotics currently in use. This study, which is published in the current issue of Journal of Medical Microbiology, demonstrates that the potent antimicrobial lacticin can kill this dangerous pathogen at relatively low concentrations.

C Diff spurs infection action

Link: Osprey Media. - The Sault Star - Ontario, CA.

Hospitals in general, and Sault Area Hospital in particular, are much safer places than they were a year ago, and one of Canada's leading infection control experts partly credits that to the hard lessons SAH officials learned from the deadly Clostridium difficile outbreak. "Sault Area Hospital has come an amazingly long way in this experience," said Dr. Michael Gardam, director of infection prevention and control at the University Health Network of three Toronto hospitals, in a telephone interview Thursday. Gardam was brought in last fall after more than 50 patients were identified as having come down with the virulent NAP-1 strain of the intestinal bacterium, linked to outbreaks in Quebec that are blamed for some 2,000 deaths in 2003 and '04. Over the following several months, SAH implemented all 29 recommendations Gardam made to minimize infections, including a costly housekeeping regimen.

Suspected C Diff Case Closes Ward At Hospital

Link: Suspected Superbug Case Closes Ward At Hospital (from The Northern Echo).

HOSPITAL chiefs have closed a ward to new admissions after a suspected superbug case. Officials at James Cook University Hospital in Middlesbrough have closed a ward - believed to be ward 12 - to new admissions. The decision was taken after a case of Clostridium difficile, an infectious organism which can cause distressing bouts of diarrhoea, was suspected on the ward.

Scientists confeident of C Diff breakthrough

Link: Scientists tackle deadly hospital superbugs.

Until now scientists have understood very little about the biology of C-diff. With funding from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and Morvus Technology Ltd, Professor Nigel Minton and his team have developed the ClosTron "knock out" system which can target specific genes in C. diff and other clostridial species. For the very first time scientists have an extremely rapid and effective way of identifying and deactivating the toxins and other factors that cause the disease and can begin the search for new therapies to prevent or cure it. Professor Minton said: "Although we have the entire genetic blueprint of C.diff, and have an inkling as to what bacterial factors might be important in disease, we have been unable to test these ideas. You never really know what a particular factor is doing until it isn't there. You need to be able to inactivate, 'knock-out', the gene responsible, and then see if the bacterium can still cause disease. Until now 'knocking out' genes has been very difficult to do. Our breakthrough ClosTron technology now makes gene knock-out very quick and easy. Once we know what factors are important we should be able to develop methods of preventing C.diff causing disease".