CDC: C. difficile infections, mortality at all-time high.

The CBS Evening News (3/6, story 11, 0:25, Pelley) reported, "We're learning more tonight about a superbug that is linked to 14,000 deaths a year in the United States. It's called C. difficile and today the Centers for Disease Control said the number of infections tripled between 2000 and 2009. Often the superbug is contracted in hospitals, but the CDC now says that many patients are exposed at nursing homes or outpatient clinics."

        In the Washington Post (3/7) "The Checkup" blog, Jennifer Larue Huget writes, "It's become a sad fact that many people being treated in health-care facilities end up catching a bad -- and potentially deadly -- bug in the very place where they're supposed to get better."

        The National Journal (3/7, Fox, Subscription Publication) reports the number of patients "with C. difficile discharge diagnoses more than doubled from approximately 139,000 to 336,600, and the number with a primary C. difficile infection diagnosis tripled, from 33,000 to 111,000." The infection "is especially hard to treat and prevent because it forms strong little spores that survive stomach acid. And they aren't killed by alcohol or standard cleaners, making it hard to eradicate them in hospitals." The infections yield "at least $1 billion in extra health care costs annually," according to the CDC.

        HealthDay (3/7, Reinberg) reports that the CDC noted "94 percent of C. difficile infections are related to medical care, with 25 percent among hospital patients and 75 percent among nursing home patients or people recently seen in doctors' offices and clinics." Ileana Arias, principal deputy director at the CDC, called the infection a "significant threat to US health care patients," and said it "is causing many Americans to suffer and die."

        MedPage Today (3/7, Neale) quotes Dr. L. Clifford McDonald of the CDC's Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion saying the fact that C. difficile infections are at a historic high "speaks to the need for strict adherence to infection prevention and control recommendations across all facility types and the need for greater care coordination." The report highlighted "Illinois, New York, and Massachusetts-that had implemented statewide C. difficile prevention efforts focused mainly on transmission within the hospital" and "showed that C. difficile infections are preventable, as the pooled infection rate dropped by a relative 20% among 71 participating hospitals (from 9.3 to 7.5 per 10,000 patient-days over a period of about 21 months)." Also covering the story are Reuters (3/7, Steenhuysen), Modern Healthcare (3/7, Subscription Publication), Medscape (3/7) and the NPR "Shots" blog (3/7).