'C.difficile' superbug is killing twice as many people as MRSA

Roman Bystrianyk · medicine forum Guru Joined: 02 May 2005 Posts: 454

Jeremy Laurance, "'C.difficile' superbug is killing twice as many
people as MRSA", Independent, June 16, 2005,
Link:
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/health_medical/story.jsp?story=647198

The hospital bug Clostridium difficile, which is sweeping through NHS
hospitals, is killing twice as many people as MRSA.

Figures from the Office for National Statistics show there were 1,748
deaths recorded in 2003 in which C.difficile was mentioned on the death
certificate. In 934 of those deaths, C.difficile was given as the
underlying cause.

In the same year, Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA)
was mentioned on the death certificates of 955 patients, in 321 of
which it was given as the underlying cause.

The new figures for C.difficile were obtained in response to a
parliamentary question by David Lidington, the Conservative MP for
Aylesbury.

A spokesman for the staistics office said: "We occasionally carry out
searches for any mention of a cause of death on death certificates
because it gives a fuller picture."

C.difficile causes severe diarrhoea, and cases have doubled since 2001
to more than 43,000 in 2004. Some of the increase is due to better
reporting. Deaths due to the bug, which occur mostly in the over 65s,
rose 38 per cent between 2001 and 2003.

Patricia Hewitt, the Health Secretary, announced this week that she
would order an inquiry into an outbreak of a virulent new strain of the
bug at Stoke Mandeville Hospital, which has claimed 12 lives and
infected 300 people since the end of 2003.

The official toll of 12 deaths was challenged yesterday by the family
of a man who died at the hospital in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, after
contracting the infection, but was not listed among the 12. Ernest
Bruver died, aged 80, on 8 May 2004 after being admitted to hospital
five weeks earlier with severe gastroenteritis.

The cause of death on his death certificate was given as (1)
broncho-pneumonia and respiratory failure, and (2) C.difficile. But
when his family contacted the hospital last week, managers denied that
he had died from the infection.

Mr Bruver's son, Nigel, 50, said: "It took them 48 hours to come back
to me and they said my father was not one of the 12. Yet there it was
on his death certificate. I couldn't make head or tail of it."

Ernest Bruver was admitted to intensive care at Stoke Mandeville on 2
April 2004. Nigel Bruver said: "He succumbed to an infection and got
diarrhoea, but we weren't told what it was. The death certificate said
he died of pneumonia. But he got pneumonia because he was lying flat on
his back for five weeks with diarrhoea caused by C.difficile.

"If he hadn't got C.difficile, he wouldn't have ended up with
pneumonia. I think we were kept in the dark."

A spokesman for Stoke Mandeville said: "C.difficile infection is very
common, and it is not uncommon to have it listed on death certificates.
The 12 deaths we have referred to are cases where the death was
directly attributed to C.difficile as the primary or probable cause."

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