Super bacteria hits Ontario hospitals

TORONTO, July 7 (UPI) -- At least 18 Canadian patients in the province of Ontario have died from C.difficile bacterial infections, provincial health officials said.

While the bulk of the deaths in May and June happened in four hospitals around Niagara Falls, the Ministry of Health said outbreaks affected 1 in 14 hospitals overall, the Globe and Mail reported.

In an average year, some 200 people in Ontario die from the bacteria, which causes severe dehydrating diarrhea. It is spread by hand contact, although Andrew Morris, director of the joint anti-microbial stewardship program at Toronto's University Health Network and Mount Sinai Hospital, told the newspaper preventing outbreaks has a different solution.

He claims doctors are over-prescribing antibiotics to hospital and long-term care facility patients, which destroys the body's ability to kill the C.difficile bacteria on its own.

"I don't believe this is only a hand-hygiene issue -- it's an unnecessary-antibiotic issue," Morris said. "We've been improving hand washing for the last few years, and all we've seen if anything is an increase in C. difficile."

Parts of Australia are also battling outbreaks of the bacteria in medical institutions. The Pittsburgh region underwent a major outbreak in 2007 and in 2004, some 2,000 people in Quebec died from a C.difficile epidemic.