Nosocomial infection in Canada

Clumps of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus bacteria, magnified nearly 10,000 times.

A similar story in Canada.

Every year, 250,000 Canadians pick up infections while they are in hospitals being treated for something else. That's a staggering one out of every nine Canadians who are admitted to hospital. Every year, those infections kill more than 8,000 people.

That's more than will die of breast cancer, AIDS and car accidents combined. Many of those deaths can be prevented - by simple hand washing.

I'm not sure exactly why this was in the news today but I thought this article on 'The War against Superbugs' from CBCNews was quite nice.

Previous posts of relevance:

• Meet the Clostridiums
• Patients flee, drawing attention to quarantine dilemma
• MRSA infection