"Hospitals need to be conducting surveillance and implementing control measures. And all of us need to realize the risk of antibiotic use may be increasing" as the bacteria continue to mutate, McDonald said.
The bacterium is Clostridium difficile, also known as C-diff. The germ is becoming a regular menace in hospitals and nursing homes, and last year it was blamed for 100 deaths over 18 months at a hospital in Quebec, Canada.
"What exactly has made C-diff act up right now, we don't know," McDonald said.
The article published in the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report focused on cases involving 33 otherwise healthy people that were reported since 2003 in Pennsylvania, Ohio, New Jersey and New Hampshire.
Most of the 33 hadn't been in a hospital within three months of getting sick, and eight said they hadn't taken any antibiotics in that span
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