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An Introduction
Clostridium difficile (C-diff) is a
bacteria from the family clostridium. It is an anaerobic bacteria which
means that it does not require the presence of oxygen to thrive. It also
produces spores which are like microscopic survival pods for the bacteria so
that when the conditions outside become preferable the spores can develop into
new organisms {wikipedia (2007)}.
Although c-diff was first discussed in
the 1930's the link between antibiotic therapy and c-diff was not made until
late in the 1970's. By the over use of certain antibiotics the health care
profession have allowed this strain of bacteria with resistance to these
antibiotics to develop. By 2005 over 100 types of the c-diff bacteria were
identified using ribo-typing which is a test used to analyse a part of the
bacteria's DNA the chromosome. One type of c-diff which appears to have a higher
mortality rate is type 027. C-diff bacteria cause toxins to build up within the
digestive system known as toxin A and toxin B either toxin can be present
without the other and both are the cause of diarrhoea. The type 027 appears to
produce more of these toxins as the part which inhibits toxin production is
absent in this type {National health Service (2007) & Wikipedia (2006)}.
Below 5% of healthy adults naturally
carry c-diff in their digestive systems and most never develop a c-diff
infection; as in health the good bacteria in the gut controls the c-diff
bacteria {Department of Health (2005)}. C-diff was mentioned on 1 in every 250
death certificates between 2001 and 2005 and of these approximately 55% in each
year specified c-diff as an underlying cause of death {National Statistics
(2007)}. These statistics prove that progress in reducing incidents of c-diff
and the number of related deaths is minimal.
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