BMJ  2007;335:958 (10 November), doi:10.1136/bmj.39388.597569.DB

News

Annual incidence of MRSA falls in England, but C difficile continues to rise

London

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Hospitals in England may be beginning to win the battle against infections, figures released by the Health Protection Agency indicate.

The statistics show that the number of new cases of methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) reported between April 2006 and March 2007 was 6381, down by more than 10% from the 7096 reported in the previous year.

The agency said that since mandatory surveillance of MRSA was introduced in 2001 the number of reported cases has fallen by 12%.

The latest quarterly figures for MRSA also show a drop in the number of cases, with 1303 reported between April and June 2007 and 1447 reported between January and March.

There are early indications that the number of Clostridium difficile infections could be beginning to fall as well. Figures for patients aged 65 years show a 13% fall, from 15 639 in the quarter January to March 2007 to 13 660 . . . [Full text of this article]

CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    What's this?

Related Articles

Community acquired MRSA in Europe

Tristan Ferry and Jerome Etienne
BMJ 2007 335: 947-948. [Extract] [Full Text] [PDF]

MRSA may kill more US citizens than HIV
BMJ 2007 335: 850. [Extract] [Full Text] [PDF]