In its spore form, C. diff is perfectly adapted for dispersal on hands and surfaces, where it can survive for prolonged periods in patient rooms and on medical equipment unless physically removed or killed by powerful solutions like bleach.
In April 1988, a young woman working in the transfusion department of the Clinical Center Hospital at the National Institutes of Health spun down a blood sample and was reaching to recap the top of the test tube.
Core and supplement infection control strategies for Clostridium difficile discussed recently in Atlanta at the Fifth Decennial International Conference on Healthcare-Associated Infections included the following:
The staggering burden of health care associated infections (HAIs) in lives and dollars is "unacceptable," but changing the status quo is difficult because the health care system is woefully skewed toward treatment rather than prevention, Thomas Frieden, MD, MPH, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said recently in Atlanta at the opening of the Fifth Decennial International Conference on HAIs.
The authors conducted a single-center, randomized, non-blinded study of critically ill patients who were expected to need mechanical ventilation > 24 hours.
Kim and associates conducted a population-based, retrospective cohort study of medical patients admitted to acute care hospitals throughout the state of Pennsylvania between July 2004 and June 2006.