Is Re-Emerging Superbug the Next MRSA?

"Disease caused by Clostridium difficile can range from nuisance diarrhea to life-threatening colitis that could lead to the surgical removal of the colon, and even death," said Dr. Stuart Johnson, associate professor of medicine, division of infectious diseases, Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine. "It's a very hardy strain and it seems to persist."

C. difficile is a bacterium that was discovered in 1978 to be the cause of antibiotic-associated diarrhea and colitis, said Johnson, one of the world's top C. diff researchers and physicians, and who successfully treated Joan Corboy's infection. Although C. diff sickens about 500,000 Americans a year and has reached epidemic proportions in 38 states including Illinois, most people have not yet heard of it.

"I don't think that people appreciate the urgency and severity of this disease," said Dr. Dale Gerding, professor of medicine, division of infectious diseases, Stritch School of Medicine, and associate chief of staff for research at Hines VA Hospital. "In the past, it was thought to be a nuisance illness. Now it is a fatal illness and a lot of physicians have not figured that out as yet."

Hospitals in Quebec have been particularly hard hit by C. diff. In the 12 hospitals affected, about 2,000 deaths were directly attributable to the antibiotic resistant strain between the 2003 and 2004. In the United Kingdom, deaths from C. diff leaped by 28 percent in 2007 to more than 8,000, according to the UK's Department of Health.