Deadly hospital infection is spreading 3 times wider than officials thought

A deadly hospital infection may be spreading three times faster than previously thought.

Clostridium difficile, also known as C. diff, is a bacteria that spreads easily, is 'immune' to disinfectants and kills about six percent of people it infects — mostly older adults.

Previous research had suggested it was spreading rarely in hospitals via direct contact between patients or contact with contaminated surfaces.

But a new study from the University of Utah that tracked individual bacteria now suggests the spread is happening much more often in intensive care units, where the most vulnerable patients are.

Scientists showed the bacteria was surviving alcohol-based cleansers and lurking in hospital rooms for weeks after an infected patient was discharged before infecting another person.

Dr Michael Rubin, an epidemiologist who led the study, said: 'There's a lot going on under the hood that we're just not seeing.

'If we ignore that, then we're potentially putting patients at unnecessary risk.'

C. diff infects around 500,000 patients every year in the US, triggering symptoms including diarrhea, abdominal pain and fever. Of these, about 30,000 die from the infection.

And in the UK, data from the country's public health service suggests about 16,000 people are now infected every year — with cases rising in hospitals. About 2,100 die from the infections.

The bacteria is hard to clear from facilities because it can form invisible spores outside the human body that survive for months.

In mild cases, infected patients may suffer frequent bouts of diarrhea.

But in more severe instances, the disease may cause diarrhea 10 to 15 times a day alongside persistent abdominal pain, a swollen abdomen, fever and rapid heart rate.

Doctors warn it can be mistaken for food poisoning, a stomach flu or a normal side effect of medication.

To treat the infection, doctors may stop administering antibiotics to a patient — leaving time for the patient's immune system and microbiome to target the bacteria and kill it.

Or they may administer a strong antibiotic — such as Vancomycin or Metronidazole — to kill off the bacteria.

In the study, published in JAMA Network Open, scientists took samples from 200 patients who were admitted to two intensive care units over several weeks.

Thousands of samples were taken, both from patients' skin and from hospital surfaces and the hands of healthcare workers.

These were then analyzed for the presence of C. diff, with the bacteria's DNA then decoded to allow researchers to track individual strains throughout the hospital.

Overall, they detected the bacteria in about 10 percent of the patients sampled — with C. diff either on a patient's body or in the room.

It wasn't clear how often the bacteria was detected among healthcare workers.

Results showed in most cases the bacteria was genetically identical to that of another patient or that found in another room, suggesting the C. diff bacteria from one patient was unknowingly transferred to another.

The team also found that in more than half of the potential transmission events, the two patients involved were not even in the hospital at the same time — sometimes separated by weeks — demonstrating how persistent the bacteria is.

Dr Rubin added: 'What I'm hoping we get from this paper is that healthcare providers put a greater emphasis on infection prevention measures and adhere to them as much as they possibly can.

'Those are the measures that can help interrupt this type of invisible transmission.'

To kill the bacteria's spores, the Environmental Protection Agency says to use bleach at a 1:10 dilution with water to disinfect surfaces.

Researchers added that not all C. diff bacteria cause disease and that in most cases they observed harmless varieties of the bacteria.

Nonetheless, they said that the spread of these non-disease-causing bacteria still revealed routes that the more dangerous version could take.