Overuse of hospital antibiotics led to global C. Diff outbreaks

[Shiloh]

Source: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/s...-led-to-deadly-superbug-outbreak-8397546.html


Overuse of hospital antibiotics led to deadly superbug outbreak
Global epidemic of C. difficile that killed thousands were caused by two separate strains
Steve Connor Author Biography

Sunday 09 December 2012

The widespread use of antibiotics in hospitals triggered the emergence of two resistant strains of the Clostridium superbug that has killed thousands of people worldwide over the past two decades, a study has shown.

A genetic analysis of about 300 samples of Clostridium difficile bacteria collected from around the world found that the global outbreaks were in fact caused by two different strains that had independently acquired resistance to an antibiotic widely used in hospitals.

Scientists traced the evolutionary trees of each strain of C. diff and found that both originated within a couple of years of each other, one in a hospital in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, and the other in Montreal, Canada...

 

[Shiloh]

Re: Overuse of hospital antibiotics led to global C. Diff outbreaks

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/dec/09/c-difficile-traced-us-canada


Drug-resistant C difficile bug traced to source in US and Canadian hospitals

Researchers use powerful genetic techniques to reconstruct disease's route around the world from North America
Ian Sample, science correspondent
The Guardian, Sunday 9 December 2012 17.59 GMT

A lethal drug-resistant bug that spread rapidly around the world and killed tens of thousands of people has been traced to hospitals in the US and Canada.

British researchers used powerful genetic techniques to reconstruct Clostridium difficile's route as it circled the globe, and identified four separate waves that brought the bug to Britain. In all but one instance, the pathogen crossed the Atlantic.

The detailed map of the epidemic shows that two highly virulent strains emerged independently in North America after the pathogens evolved resistance to a frontline antibiotic in wide use at the time...