C-Diff More Widespread than MRSA

Posted in These Categories: Studies and Hospital Acquired Infections

Medizone International, Inc. (OTCBB and OTCQB: MZEI) (http://medizoneint.com)

A recent study from Duke Infection Control Outreach Network, Duke University, addressed rates of Clostridium difficile infections. The good news is that AsepticSure™ is equally effective in terms of its kill rate against c-diff as it is against MRSA.

The study presented at the Fifth Decennial International Conference on Healthcare-Associated Infections indicated rates of Clostridium difficile infections (CDI) surpassed infection rates for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) according to researchers studying epidemiology of healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) in community hospitals in the southeast U.S. found that.

“Despite the amount of attention given to MRSA, our study shows that CDI has emerged as the leading healthcare-associated infection in our network of hospitals,” said Becky Miller, MD, Duke Infection Control Outreach Network, Duke University. “In addition, our study likely underestimates the true scope of the problem since we did not include cases of community-onset healthcare-associated CDI.”

This is the first large study to use patient level surveillance data (i.e. numerators and denominators) to compare the rates of healthcare-associated CDI and MRSA. Previous studies were based on estimates using hospital ICD-9-CM discharge diagnosis codes.

Dr. Miller and her colleagues studied 30 community hospitals in the Southeastern United States which are members of the Duke Infection Control Outreach Network (DICON). Over the 18-month period, which included more than 2 million patient days, researchers compared 607 cases of CDI and 508 cases of infections due to MRSA.

To better understand and identify infection trends, researchers also examined 949 other cases of HAIs. They found bloodstream infections occurred in 481 patients on general hospital wards and device-related infections occurred in 468 patients in intensive care units (ICU). ICU device-related infections included 197 catheter-associated urinary tract infections, 102 ventilator-associated pneumonias and 182 catheter-associated bloodstream infections.

“These findings are a reminder that prevention priorities must include the prevention of CDI”, said Dr. Denise Cardo, director of CDC’s Division of Healthcare Quality and Promotion. “CDI is an important cause of healthcare-associated infections and deserves attention.”

Dr. Miller noted that additional epidemiologic studies are needed to determine whether prescribing practices, geographic differences, hospital characteristics, or other factors affected infection rates found in this study.

Medizone International, Inc. is a research and development company engaged in developing its AsepticSure™ System to decontaminate and sterilize hospitals, sports training facilities, schools and other critical infrastructure. A government variant is being developed for bio-terrorism counter measures. Successful decontamination by AsepticSure™ to the 6 log standard or greater has been demonstrated with C.difficile, E coli, Pseudomonas aeruginous, MRSA, VRE and Bacillius subtilis.

Medizone International, Inc.
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Stinson Beach, CA 94970
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This release contains certain forward looking statements that involve substantial risks and uncertainties, including, but not limited to, the results of ongoing clinical studies, economic conditions, product and technology development, production efficiencies, product demand, competitive products, competitive environment, successful testing and government regulatory issues. Additional risks are identified in the company’s filings made with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

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