The bacterium Clostridium difficile – commonly called C. diff – spreads within intensive care units more than three times as much as previously thought, researchers reported in JAMA Network Open.

C. difficile (C. diff) is one of the most common and contagious hospital-acquired infections. Research has found that C. diff spreads more than three times more than previously thought.

To track infections throughout the health care setting, the researchers sampled for C. diff from nearly 200 patients across two intensive care units (ICUs), as well as collecting thousands of ...