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Superbug rates in hospitals have been cut by more than a third across the country over the past year, figures reveal today.
The number of people diagnosed with MRSA fell by 34 per cent and those with Clostridium difficile infections fell by 35 per cent between April last year and March this year.
It means the risk of being infected with a superbug is at its lowest for five years.
Professor Mike Catchpole, deputy director of the Health Protection Agency's Centre for Infections, said: "The substantial drop we have seen in MRSA bloodstream infections and C.diff over the past year is impressive and a credit to the hard work of our colleagues in the NHS, strengthening good practice in infection control."
But the figures from the Health Protection Agency show a slight increase in the number of people diagnosed with superbugs between January and March this year, compared with the final three months of 2008.
Professor Catchpole added: "It is vital that the measures which have won this significant success remain in place."
The figures mean the Government has reached its target of cutting C.diff cases by 30 per cent by 2011.
