• E-mail
• Print
• RSS

Bacterial outbreak kills 100 patients at Quebec hospital

Infection Control Monitor, August 6, 2004

An infectious disease expert is calling on the Canadian government to take action to prevent more outbreaks of a bacterial infection that has been blamed in the deaths of 100 patients at his hospital in Quebec, the Associated Press reports.

Jacques Pepin, MD, an infectious disease expert at University Hospital in Sherbrooke, near Montreal, says cases of Clostridium difficile are on the rise. The bacteria killed 54 patients in 2003 and 46 so far this year at Sherbrooke. It often occurs after a patient has taken antibiotics.

Outbreaks of C. difficile, a bacterial infection commonly found in nursing homes and hospitals, have accounted for the deaths of about 90 patients at other Montreal area hospitals and Calgary, Alberta.

"A lot of these patients were quite elderly people and for some of them, they obviously died for other reasons, "Pepin said. "In my opinion, the vast majority of these patients died directly of this infection."

• E-mail to a Colleague
• Print
• RSS
• Archive