Vaccines for deadly superbugs may be available in 10yrs

London, July 14 : If UK experts are to be believed, vaccines to keep deadly superbug infections at bay will be available in hospitals within a decade.

The Department of Health said that an injection against the clostridium difficile bug, which causes severe diarrhoea, would be ready in five years.

The department also said that a jab against MRSA might be available by 2018.

Professor Sir Liam Donaldson, the Government's chief medical officer, said that it would be a "big breakthrough" to immunise patients against the deadly infections

He said that the vaccines could be used in two ways.

"One would be protecting the individual, somebody who was going into hospital for a major operation," the Mirror quoted him as saying.

"The other way of looking at it would be to try to interrupt the chain of transmission - to study the pattern of infection in the community, in hospitals and nursing homes, and try to eradicate the pools of infection," he added.

Dr. Donaldson, however, insisted that "infection control measures"-like nurses washing their hands-would still have to be followed because there would always be the risk of a new infection breaking out.

"You might be able to get close to eliminating them with a vaccine. But if you didn't concentrate on hygiene measures, something else would come along to replace them," he said.

ANI