THE family of a pensioner struck down by a superbug while in hospital have demanded more information amid concerns they may be unwittingly spreading the infection.

Minnie Atkinson, 80, was infected by the clostridium difficile bug a fortnight ago while recuperating from a stroke she suffered in Bishop Auckland General Hospital, County Durham. She was in hospital after breaking her hip.

At first, Mrs Atkinson, from High Etherley, near Bishop Auckland, was not placed in isolation and stayed on a ward with four other patients.

Her son, John, said: "It's not so much that she's caught the bug - these things happen. We just don't feel we are being told the whole truth.

"We don't know if other patients are being put at risk.

"She is isolated on a side ward now but, when she got it, there was her and another lady and they were on a ward with three others."

The infection causes severe diarrhoea and Eileen Henderson, Mrs Atkinson's daughter, is concerned that by taking her mother's nightwear home to be washed, she risked spreading the infection.

Ms Henderson said: "The staff take precautions, like gloves and aprons, when they treat her, and there is soap for washing hands.

"But I'm bringing her nighties homes to be washed and the plastic bags which I bring them home in go in the bin, which will then go straight into a landfill.

"We don't know if they are carrying an infection and whether they need to be incinerated."

A spokesman for the hospital said the hospital had a policy of providing as much information as possible about infections and provided patients and their relatives with leaflets.

He said: "Hospital practice is to make sure that garments are rinsed before they are given to patients' relatives to take home, and hospital nightgowns are available as an alternative. Clostridium difficile is not necessarily a hospital-acquired infection.

"It is already present in the gut of approximately three per cent of the population, and can cause illness when a course of antibiotics, or liquid feeding, upsets the balance of bacteria in the bowel.

"Only people who are hospitalised themselves, or taking antibiotics, are likely to become ill if they come into contact with clostridium difficile."

Clostridium difficile is believed to be responsible for nearly twice as many deaths nation-wide as the MRSA superbug. In 2003, there were 1,748 deaths in which clostridium difficile was mentioned on the death certificate and in 934 of those deaths, the bug was given as the underlying cause.

Cases of clostridium dificile have doubled since 2001, to 43,000 last year, and deaths have risen by 38 per cent between 2001 and 2003.

The bug recently made headlines after a virulent strain was responsible for 12 deaths at the Stoke Mandeville Hospital, in Buckinghamshire.