When you’re admitted to a hospital, you expect to receive tests and treatments that will make you feel better. When you get antibiotics in the hospital, you expect that the drugs will treat or prevent infection. But it doesn’t always work that way.
A distressing number of patients actually acquire infections while they are in the hospital. Antibiotic therapy has been shown to increase the odds of coming down with a hospital-acquired infection, particularly when the cause is a bacterium named Clostridium difficile.
Although doctors are working hard to control intestinal infections caused by the bug commonly (if not fondly) known as C. diff, the problem is rapidly becoming more common, more serious, and harder to treat.
No man is truly alone.
Instead, the human body is teeming with bacteria. Each person’s body is made up of about 10 trillion cells — and each of us plays host to about 100 trillion bacterial cells.
Most are harmless, in fact some of the body’s resident bacteria are actually quite helpful, and even the potentially bad actors usually behave themselves, especially if they stay put on tissues that have learned to accommodate them.
The gastrointestinal (GI) tract is a prime example of the co-existence between humans and their germs. The average GI tract harbors 500 to 1,000 different microbial species that take up residence in infancy and call the GI tract home throughout life. The vast majority of these critters reside in the lowest part of the GI tract, the colon, or large intestine. In fact, fecal material is composed largely of wall-to-wall bacteria. Yes, your poop is made up of countless critters, which just goes to underscore the need for biohazard cleanup specialists when dealing with circumstances where feces is present and requires safe removal.
The most numerous bacteria go by fierce names such as E. coli, Proteus, Klebsiella, Enterococcus, and Bacteroides. Each of these germs can cause disastrous illnesses if it works its way into the bloodstream or invades various tissues.
In the colon, however, these bacteria are harmless, and actually, the normal colonic bacteria make important contributions to health by producing vitamin K, stimulating the immune system and helping to establish the proper balance between its components, while detoxifying various chemicals that might otherwise be harmful. Another vital role of normal bacteria is to crowd out and suppress would-be pathogens, including C. diff.
Scientists discovered C. diff in 1935, but they didn’t recognize it as the major cause of antibiotic-associated diarrhea until 1978. The rise of C. diff in the 1970s was triggered by the widespread use of the antibiotic clindamycin.
Over the next 20 years, broad-spectrum antibiotics in the penicillin and cephalosporin families fueled the C. diff epidemic, and in the early years of this century, fluoroquinolone antibiotics were linked to a new and more dangerous hypervirulent strain of C. diff.
C. diff is classified as an anaerobic bacterium because it thrives in the absence of oxygen. Like its cousins, the Clostridia that cause tetanus, botulism, and gas gangrene, C. diff passes through a life cycle in which the actively dividing form transforms itself into the spore stage.
Spores are inert and metabolically inactive, so they don’t cause disease. At the same time, though, spores are very tough and sturdy; they are hard to kill with disinfectants, and they shrug off even the most powerful antibiotics.
One of the nastiest bugs we’ve ever dealt with, here’s how C. diff causes trouble.
Patients with C. diff shed spores into their feces and without strict precautions, spores are inadvertently transmitted to hands, utensils, and foods, and then swallowed by someone else. The spores come to life in the second person’s GI tract, but in the best of circumstances, the normal bacteria keep C. diff in check and illness does not develop. But if the “good” GI bacteria have been knocked down by antibiotics, C. diff gets the upper hand.
As C. diff multiplies and grows, it produces toxins that injure the lining of the colon, producing diarrhea, inflammation, and sometimes worse. Ordinary strains of C. diff produce two toxins, called toxins A and B, but the new, worrisome hypervirulent strains produce up to 16 times more toxin A and 23 times more toxin B.
When C. diff causes problems, symptoms range from mild to severe, even life-threatening. With their insatiable love of acronyms, doctors call the wide range of symptoms CDAD for Clostridium difficile–associated disease.
In its mildest form, CDAD produces watery diarrhea at least three times a day, usually accompanied by lower abdominal cramps. Bleeding and fever are absent, and patients have a normal number of white blood cells.
Patients with moderate CDAD have profuse diarrhea, abdominal pain, and fever. Nausea is common. The diarrhea does not usually look bloody, but tests may reveal traces of intestinal bleeding. Blood tests show a high white blood cell count.
In severe CDAD, the temperature and white blood cell count are very high, and the patient’s blood pressure may be low, sometimes dangerously so, as severe diarrhea leads to dehydration. Intestinal bleeding may be dramatic. In its most critical form, CDAD leads to a complication called toxic megacolon, in which the colon is dilated and at risk for perforation.
Although C. diff can occasionally crop up without rhyme or reason, the vast majority of its victims are patients in hospitals or long-term care facilities — and the great majority of them have received antibiotics.
C. diff is a preventable infection however.
Along with a prompt diagnosis of CDAD, so control measures can take effect before C. diff spreads, contact precautions are essential for CDAD patients who are in hospitals or other care facilities.
All medical, nursing, and ancillary personnel should cleanse their hands and then don gloves and a gown before coming in contact with the patient. The gown and gloves should be placed in appropriate receptacles as caregivers leave the room.
Nearly all hospitals rely on alcohol-based hand cleansers for hand hygiene and infection control. But C. diff breaks that rule, too, as its spores resist alcohol. So in addition to alcohol disinfectant, people who come into contact with C. diff should use good old-fashioned soap and running water with vigorous scrubbing and thorough rinsing. Soap doesn’t kill the spores, either, but scrubbing can physically remove many of them.
Because C. diff spores can survive on dry surfaces for weeks and months, environmental surfaces in a patient’s room also require special care. You need the professional biohazard cleanup specialists at Advanced Bio Treatment, who have the latest cutting edge equipment to wipe out not only C. Diff spores, but also many, many other dangerous pathogens.
Introducing our “One Off,” the Halo Fogger.
At Advanced Bio Treatment, every member of our infection prevention team is armed with a safe and effective environment protection solution. The Halo Fogger allows Advanced Bio Treatment to decontaminate any room in your facility with a system proven to kill disease-causing pathogens, including the most difficult to kill, C. diff spores.
Unlike ineffective “spray & wipe” and UV disinfection technologies, the Halo Disinfection System delivers hands-free, whole room surface disinfection at a 6-log kill rate that saves patients’ lives and is designed to deliver infection-rate reducing results safely, and in a cost effective way for medical facilities as well as regular homeowners.
Our Halo Disinfection Systems at ABT, are able to reach into nooks, crevices and corners that disinfecting sprays & wipes can’t, reaching every exposed surface in a room, not just the primary or “high-touch” surfaces, and reducing the risk of cross-contamination associated with using a rag, wipe or sponge.
So remember, if you are worried about the presence or spread of an infectious disease like C. Diff, we can help, you are not on your own!
Being responsible for an office, day care center, church or the like, safety is always of utmost importance. You can’t afford to try deal with something as potentially serious as a infectious disease outbreak on your own. That’s why we’re here. Advanced Bio Treatment will research your particular problem and give you a cleanup and sanitation plan tailored to your situation. We are well trained, OSHA compliant, and meets all EPA guidelines for disposal of infectious material.
The health hazards posed by C. Diff, Bird Flu, Swine Flu or H1N1, methicillin-resistant staphylococcus infections or MRSA have been all over the news a lately. The potential for the spread of infectious diseases has never been higher. There have been verified cases of outbreaks of these bio hazards, which can be deadly and are particularly dangerous to anyone with a weakened immune system.
Whether you need a Staph infection cleanup, C-DIFF cleanup, or any other infectious disease cleanup, the sanitation and decontamination technicians here at ABT have the cleanup skills protect you and yours, you can trust our certified scene cleanup teams to do a thorough job while abiding by OSHA regulations. If you are a family friend or relative, we can work with you as an agent so the family is saved the hardship. If you will not be there, we will gladly handle that for you as much as possible by handling the paperwork by fax if you prefer.
If you need clean-up guidance, have questions about your payment options, which crime scene clean up procedures your current insurance policy covers or require our blood cleanup services immediately, give Advanced Bio Treatment a call at 800-295-1684
