| ■ Dangerous Hospital Bacterium Spreads in Air: Study | 2010.05.28 |
| Scientists thought that a germ that causes deadly intestinal infections in hospital patients spread only by surface contact, but now researchers report Clostridium difficile can travel through the air. Inhaling the spores doesn't seem to spread C. difficile, but the British scientists said the germs can land in places where people can touch them, The New York Times reported. Contact with infected feces is the usual source of C. difficile contamination. Studying 50 infected patients, the University of Leeds researchers found that the more active their diarrhea, the more C. difficile spores there were. The researchers stressed the need to isolate hospital patients with diarrhea -- even before confirmation of C. difficile infection. However, Dr. L. Clifford McDonald, an epidemiologist at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told the Times that the finding will probably not change current preventive practice since putting patients in a single room "is the norm here in the U.S." "There is a little bit of dispersion," McDonald added, "but the heavier contamination is still from direct contact." The best prevention, experts said, is still proper hand hygiene. |