The London Daily Telegraph reports: “Record number of patients are dying in hospitals and nursing homes after contracting superbugs, new figures show.
MRSA and Clostridium difficile were linked to more than 8,000 deaths in England and Wales in 2006, up from 5,300 the previous year.
The first ever breakdown of deaths from both infections by location released by the Office for National Statistics shows that the vast majority of patients died from the bugs in hospital.
The deadly infections also killed small numbers of patients in nursing homes and hospices.
In total there were 6,424 deaths from C difficile in all three locations in 2006, almost double the 3,719 deaths caused by the infection in 2005.
MRSA was responsible for 1,625 deaths, up from 1,621 the previous year…
More than 1,100 hospitals, hospices and nursing homes had at least one death from C difficile in the last five years and more than 900 had at least one death from MRSA.
The Office for National Statistics cautioned that many of the hospitals who recorded large numbers of deaths from both infections were also more likely to have high patient numbers generally. The data, collected from death certificates, also shows only where patients died, not where they acquired the infections initially or where they received other treatment before their death…”
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