Who’s at Risk for Contracting C-Difficile?

Jul 23, 2015Clinical Trial

Clostridium Difficile, or C-Diff for short, doesn’t play favorites when it comes to making you sick. This bacterium can affect people with no risk factors just as easily as those with weakened immune systems. Although it doesn’t generally affect people with a healthy gut, C-Diff is easier to contract for certain audiences and in specific circumstances.

C-Diff spores can live on hard surfaces for a long time, so it’s easy for a person to transfer it from an infected surface to his or her mouth by hand. And if the person who comes in contact with C-Diff doesn’t have thriving “good” bacteria in his or her stomach and intestinal tract to fight it off, C-Diff can quickly take root and grow out of control.

Every day, this good bacteria “fights the good fight” for us by keeping bad bacteria at bay. However, when we ingest antibiotics, they destroy both the bad and the good bacteria that protect us from infection. So, your chances of contracting C-Diff when on a course of antibiotics (or on multiple antibiotics) increases 7- to 10-fold.

Other risk factors include:

  • Age (of the 350,000 Americans who are hospitalized for C-Diff annually, 77% of those cases are people over the age of 50.)
  • Staying in medical care facilities
  • Having a medical procedure
  • Experiencing diarrhea after being hospitalized

Symptoms to be aware of include:

  • Fever
  • Nausea
  • Watery diarrhea
  • Abdominal pain
  • Loss of appetite
  • Not passing stool
  • Inflammation of the colon (colitis or IBS)

C-Diff Vaccine Clinical Trial Utah

If you or someone you love is entering a long-term care facility or has an upcoming hospitalization, he or she may qualify for a clinical research study in Salt Lake City, Utah, by JBR Clinical Research.

Participants that are selected for the study will receive a no-charge vaccination, study-related procedures and compensation for time and travel.

Basic qualifications are:

  • 40-75 years of age

If you qualify, you may receive:

  • Study-related exam
  • No-charge investigational C-Diff vaccination
  • Compensation for time and travel related to the study

To learn more or to see if you qualify, contact JBR Clinical Research online today.

 

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