Nasty germ gets around

Health care workers and patients have yet another source of hospital-acquired infection to worry about, British researchers are reporting.

Clostridium difficile, a germ that causes deadly intestinal infections in hospital patients, has long been thought to be spread only by contact with contaminated surfaces. But a new study finds that it can also travel through the air.

The researchers emphasized that there is no evidence that C. difficile can be contracted by inhaling the germs.

Rather, they float on the air, landing in places where more people can touch them.

The bug is commonly spread by contact with infected feces, and the British scientists said the new study made it even more urgent to isolate hospital patients with diarrhea as soon as possible — even before tests confirm a C. difficile infection.

“We don't want people to wait for the confirmation,” said the study's senior author, Dr. Mark Wilcox, a professor of medical microbiology at the University of Leeds. “By then, the cat's out of the bag.”

Outbreaks of C. difficile, a bacterium resistant to many antibiotics, have been increasing in the United States since 2001, along with the evolution of more virulent strains.

People in good health are rarely infected.

But broad-spectrum antibiotics can wipe out the bacteria that normally live in the intestines, allowing C. difficile to flourish. Hospitalized people on antibiotics and the elderly, even when not taking medicine, are at high risk.

The spores are resistant to disinfectants and can survive in open areas for months.

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