By British patients will be taking part in a clinical trial testing the effectiveness of what may become a vaccine against the superbug, Clostridium. Difficil.
According to the Daily Mail:
The vaccine is the first in the world to be developed against C. diff infections which affect thousands of elderly hospital patients each year.
Altogether 600 men and women who are acutely sick with C. diff at 30 hospitals will be involved in a new clinical trial…Although the new drug is being used as a treatment in the trial, if the results are successful it will eventually be marketed as a vaccine.
If the trials prove successful, what can this mean for healthcare in the U.S.? Hopefully a) patients, particularly the elderly, would be better protected against infection, and b) hospitals could also be immunized from financial risks associated with paying the cost for patients who stay longer due to infection.
