New Superbug 'more dangerous than MRSA'
Pastor Dale Morgan
New Superbug 'more dangerous than MRSA'*
Beezy Marsh, Health Correspondent, Sunday Telegraph
Last Updated: 12:13am GMT 05/11/2006
The spread of a dangerous new superbug through hospitals is being hugely
underestimated by the Government's reporting scheme, NHS staff have
admitted.
The shambolic state of infection control on wards is exposed in a survey
by the Patients' Association. It found only about a quarter of trusts
are gathering data on Clostridium difficile (C. diff), the bacterium
that experts say poses more of a risk to public health than MRSA
(Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus Aureus).
Clostridium difficile: More of a risk than MRSA
The bug is feared to have claimed at least 70 lives in the past year.
The findings from 500 infection-control nurses and managers follow
mounting concern over the threat to patients' health from C. diff, which
can cause severe illness and death in those with weakened immune
systems, particularly the elderly.
The bacterium, which spreads easily through unhygienic and filthy wards,
is the major cause of infectious diarrhoea, but it can also cause high
temperatures and severe inflammation, and comes with a death rate of
about five per cent.
Cases rose by more than 17 per cent last year, with 51,000 C. diff
infections reported to the Health Protection Agency - but it appears the
true number of those affected could be much higher.
The University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust admitted last month that
C. diff was likely to have killed 28 patients and was implicated in the
deaths of a further 21 people since January.
At least 20 patients are feared to have died as a result of infection
with the bacterium at Maidstone Hospital in Kent earlier this year and
the Healthcare Commission is holding an inquiry. The Health Protection
Agency has required all trusts, since 2004, to report hospital-acquired
infections with C. diff in the over-65s, but the Patients' Association
survey revealed that only 27 per cent of staff said this was happening
in their hospital.
Nearly half of respondents said not all hospital staff were adequately
trained in infection control and 47 per cent complained that much-needed
cash for training was not ring-fenced.
Katharine Murphy, of the Patients' Association, said: "Collection of
data about this very dangerous infection is haphazard to say the least,
and we are not getting the true picture. How can patients have
confidence in their hospitals if the real threat posed by C. diff is
being played down?"
Dr Mark Enright, a microbiologist at Imperial College London, said that
the government agency's monitoring scheme was flawed because a new and
more dangerous strain of C. diff had emerged in the past year or so,
striking patients aged 40 and over.
"The HPA monitoring system was set up hurriedly before this new
aggressive type emerged, and what we are not getting from their reports
is the number of people in the community with this form of C. diff, and
the number of younger hospital patients affected," he said. "Some of the
cases of diarrhoea are so severe that hospital treatment is needed. Once
in a hospital it [the bacterium] can spread like wildfire and everyone
on the ward will have some degree of infection.
"We need to know how many cases there are right across all age groups,
not just the oldest ones, although they are more vulnerable."
A spokesman for the Health Protection Agency said the mandatory
surveillance for C. diff was one of the most accurate national systems
worldwide. "In 2005 all acute hospitals treating adult patients reported
cases to the HPA. There is no evidence of widespread under-reporting and
we are confident current figures are a broadly accurate estimate of the
true number of people with C. diff in England and Wales."
A Department of Health spokesman said clean, safe care was not an
"optional extra" for the NHS, adding: "Infection control should be a
core activity for trusts."
Full results of the Patients' Association survey are due to be released
tomorrow.