Stomach Bug Mutates Into Medical Mystery

Read the article by Rob Stein in the Washington Post of December 30, 2005.

A severly pathogenic strain of Clostridium difficile appears to be spreading rapidly around the United States and causing unusually severe, sometimes fatal illness. "'This may well be another consequence of our use of antibiotics,' said John G. Bartlett, an infectious-disease expert at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. 'It's another example of an organism that all of a sudden has gotten a lot meaner and nastier.'..........The infection usually hits people who are taking antibiotics for other reasons, but a handful of cases have been reported among people who were taking nothing, another unexpected and troubling turn in the germ's behavior.

The infection has long been common in hospital patients taking antibiotics. As the drugs kill off other bacteria in the digestive system, the C. diff microbe can proliferate. It spreads easily through contact with contaminated people, clothing or surfaces. There are no national statistics, but the number of infections in hospitals appears to have doubled from 2000 to 2003 and there may be as many as 500,000 cases each year, McDonald said. Other estimates put the number in the millions."