Superbugs 'cause 10,000 hospital deaths every year

Two superbugs are causing the deaths of more than 10,000 hospital patients every year, an expert has disclosed.

The number of deaths from MRSA and clostridium difficile is being underestimated by about 20 per cent, one of the country's leading authorities on superbugs has said. Official figures put the number of deaths from the two infections at about 8,000 a year.


The Government has insisted that its strategy for
cutting infection rates is bearing fruit


Mark Enright, a professor of molecular epidemiology at London's Imperial College, said the number of deaths from MRSA and c.diff was significantly higher.

"I think it is at least 10,000 a year," he said. "A lot of people are never tested for these infections and their deaths are put down to something else."

Nearly 10 people are dying every day from c.diff, according to official figures, with even more dying from MRSA. In 2006, c.diff was recorded as the underlying cause of death for 3,490 people - a 69 per cent increase on the previous year.

The leap followed a Department of Health order that doctors must note healthcare-acquired infections on death certificates. The edict followed numerous cases in which coroners found that doctors did not record superbugs as the cause of death on death certificates.

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Hugh Pennington, professor emeritus of microbiology at Aberdeen University, said Prof Enright was right to say that figures based on death certificates still underestimated the problem.

He said: "They are very inaccurate evidence at the best of times. They are an underestimate of the problem; they are certainly not an overestimate."

He said there was a "reluctance" to mention MRSA or c.diff because of the pressure to hit targets for reducing hospital-acquired infections, and to avoid potentially costly legal actions.

The Government has insisted that its strategy for cutting infection rates, including a campaign to stop doctors wrongly prescribing antibiotics, and a £50 million "deep clean" of hospitals, is bearing fruit.

The latest quarterly figures from the Health Protection Agency (HPA) showed an 18 per cent fall in MRSA cases in England compared with the previous quarter, and a 21 per cent fall in c.diff cases.

Critics doubt it will hit one of its key targets, of halving the number of MRSA bloodstream infections recorded in 2004. It may prove impossible to reduce infection rates in Britain to low levels again, they say, because poor hygiene practices have enabled strong strains of MRSA and c.diff to develop over decades.

At least 42 per cent of MRSA strains in Britain are "superstrains", according to a survey published in the journal Eurosurveillance, compared with 20 per cent in other countries.

A Department of Health spokesman said the Chief Medical Officer wrote to the NHS in July 2005 to ensure that infections such as MRSA and c.diff were reported more accurately on death certificates.

"These statistics from 2006 show that this move has worked and our figures are now in line with other developed countries. There is no evidence that the severity of the disease has increased. In fact, c.diff rates are falling."

Source: The Telegraph - Stephen Adams