AN OUTBREAK of Clostridium difficileat Galway's University College Hospital earlier this year was a contributory factor in a number of patient deaths.
The outbreak occurred in January and predominantly affected one medical ward for the elderly.
In all, 22 cases of infection with the superbug were confirmed and 11 of them were on one 19-bed ward.
Most had the virulent and highly transmissible 027 strain of the infection. Samples were sent to a laboratory in Cardiff to have them typed.
Prof Martin Cormican from the Department of Medical Microbiology at the Galway hospital said 30.8 per cent of the patients who became infected died within 30 days. But he stressed these deaths were from "all causes", not necessarily as a result of Clostridium difficileas the condition normally affects patients already on antibiotic therapy for other conditions.
He said the patients' charts were being reviewed to see if the bug had contributed to any of these deaths. "We are not finished that assessment process," he said.
But he said he could confirm that Clostridium difficile"was a contributory factor in deaths in a number of cases".
Prof Cormican said the outbreak was now over. "What we are seeing now is very much what we would expect to see in a hospital of our size . . . we are essentially back to baseline," he said.
He added that he didn't believe there was a major hospital where Clostridium difficiledidn't occur.
The Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HPSC), which began collecting figures for cases of Clostridium difficileinfection at the beginning of May, said it was getting reports of about 40 cases a week from hospitals nationwide.
It also said it was known from international studies that 25 to 30 per cent of people who have the infection can die with it, not necessarily from it.
A total of 11 outbreaks of Clostridium difficile, a condition that causes severe diarrhoea, were reported to the HPSC between January 2004 and December 2007.
Earlier this year it emerged that an outbreak at Ennis General Hospital in the first half of 2007 contributed to 13 patient deaths.
The bug was also a direct cause of death or a contributory cause of death in 10 patients at St Columcille's Hospital, Loughlinstown, Dublin, over a seven-month period in 2007, according to statistics released by the Dublin county coroner's office.
Details of the Galway hospital outbreak and how it was controlled will be outlined at the inaugural annual meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of Ireland in Dublin today.
The meeting, at the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland, is expected to hear further calls for the setting up of a special reference laboratory in the State for the molecular typing of Clostridium difficileas well as for further resources to improve infection control in hospitals.