17 Canadians infected in new C. difficle outbreak

Seventeen people in Quebec, Canada's French speaking province, have been infected with the superbug C. difficile over the last 12 days.

The Lanaudiere regional hospital in Joliette, Quebec, where four people died from Clostridium difficile last April, is fighting to contain a new outbreak of the disease.

The hospital's director Caroline Barbir told CTV News that teams were cleaning and disinfecting the hospital 24 hours day in an effort to prevent new infections.

The patients, mostly seniors, were frail and have multiple illness, she said, adding that they have been quarantined, but the hospital was not in quarantine.

Surgeries will proceed as scheduled. The hospital's clinic will be open Monday.

But a security guard has been posted at every entrance to demand visitors and staff wash their hands as they enter the hospital.

Administrators say the hospital's emergency room has been receiving three times as many patients as it is equipped to handle, and are looking at overcrowding as a culprit in the outbreak.

The superbug killed 14 people this fall at hospitals in Quebec. There were more than 7,000 cases of C. difficile during an epidemic in Quebec three years ago.

Source: Xinhua