104 - Other intestinal infections
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 April 2023
Summary
This group comprises all intestinal infections due to other organisms not included in Map 49. These have been mapped separately from other infections to highlight deaths due to Clostridium difficile.
See also Map 6 All deaths due to infections, and Map 49 Deaths due to other infections.
It is partly the rarity of mortality from these causes that leads the map opposite to be so speckled in appearance. High rates concentrate in small clusters, perhaps reflecting outbreaks of food poisoning or contraction from stays in the same hospital: infections are usually local and hence result in localised clustering.
Overall, rates of infection and hence death from infection tend to be lower in more rural and isolated areas. This has been so since time immemorial. Deaths from these diseases used to be more common. Now in many areas they can kill so infrequently that rates are too low to map (that is, with an SMR of below 25).
Recently, under ICD-10, enterocolitis due to Clostridium difficile has comprised the majority of deaths within this grouping, some 96%. It is not possible to calculate the percentage of deaths from this cause prior to 2000/01, as it was included in the category Other specified bacteria, accounting for four fifths of the deaths in this grouping.
Clostridium difficile is a bacteria that can lead to severe infection of the colon; this often occurs after the flora of the gut have been destroyed by antibiotics. The heat-resistant spores of the organism can survive for long periods of time in settings such as hospitals or nursing homes.
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- The Grim Reaper's Road MapAn Atlas of Mortality in Britain, pp. 210 - 211Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2008