BIOPHAGE PHARMA (fka BIPMF)

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Ontario hospitals see increase in deadly bacteria
Wed Mar 7, 2007

TORONTO (Reuters) - A deadly bacteria that attacks the intestines of mainly elderly patients is showing up with more frequency at a handful of Ontario hospitals, Joshua Tepper, the Canadian province's acting chief medical officer of health, said on Tuesday.

"In a few hospitals in Ontario, we are seeing more cases at this time than we might expect," Tepper told Reuters. "At any given point in time we expect hospitals to have a few cases, especially in larger hospitals, but there a few hospitals that are seeing above average levels."

Clostridium difficile or C. difficile is a bacterium that causes diarrhea and intestinal conditions such as colitis. It is the most common cause of infectious diarrhea in hospitalized patients and is also one of the most common infections in hospitals and long-term care facilities.

Rates at which patients have become infected have increased at some Ontario facilities, prompting concern that a deadlier strain has developed.

Tepper said it is too early to determine whether this is the case.

"There is evidence from studies done that the bacteria is changing and that is something that we are monitoring quite closely," he said.

Trillium Health Center in Mississauga, just west of Toronto, said that as of Monday night, 21 patients currently in the hospital had tested positive for C. difficile.

Another 43 patients at Royal Victoria Hospital in Barrie, Ontario - about 100 kilometers north of Toronto - have been diagnosed with the bacteria so far this year.

The Barrie hospital has confirmed that at least one of those patients has died, afflicted with the same deadly strain of C. difficile that has killed more than 2,000 in the province of Quebec since 2003.

http://ca.today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyID=2007-03-07T132842Z_0...