More than 1,600 cases of a deadly superbug have been discovered at Sussex hospitals in the past year.

All the county's major hospitals reported hundreds of infections in 2005 of Clostridium difficile - with Worthing and Southlands hospitals' cases increasing by 44 per cent from 2004 to 2005.

Despite warnings about hospital hygiene, the number of reports of the bug, known as C. difficile, has increased by more than 100 in 12 months, from 1,486 in 2004 to 1,603 in 2005.

Although some trusts have reduced cases, stark rises in Worthing and Brighton accounted for the overall increase.

More than 1,600 people aged 65 or over caught the diarrhoea-causing infection on wards across the county.

The latest Health Protection Agency figures show Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals reported 472 cases to the Department of Health - a rise of 104.

East Sussex Hospitals NHS Trust reported 387 and Royal West Sussex Hospitals NHS Trust disclosed 261 cases as part of the first official audit of C. difficile.

Worthing and Southlands Hospitals NHS Trust says it is improving its infection control techniques after inviting a Department of Health specialist team to advise staff earlier this year.

While the number of cases rose from 135 in 2004 to 195 in 2005, managers now hope to stave off the bug by controlling the use of antibiotics and encouraging staff to clean their hands properly on the wards.

Across the county, 1,603 cases were recorded last year, compared with 1,486 in 2004 when the figures were initially released by the Department of Health as part of its mandatory surveillance scheme for C. difficile-associated diarrhoea, prompting calls for better cleanliness in hospitals.

The bug gained notoriety last year when it emerged it had killed 12 patients at Stoke Mandeville in Buckinghamshire, 13 at the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital and one at Oldchurch Hospital in Romford, Essex.

Cases of the infection across the UK have risen from about 1,000 in the early Nineties to more than 20,000 by 2000.

The bug is usually spread on the hands of healthcare staff and people who have contact with infected patients.

It rarely affects healthy adults or infants with elderly patients accounting for 80 per cent of cases.

The bacterium, which lives in the gut, multiplies rapidly when doses of antibiotics disturb the balance of germs in the body, causing severe complications for elderly people and patients already seriously ill.

Pam Lelliott, spokeswoman for Worthing and Southlands Hospitals Trust, said: "The trust takes infection control extremely seriously and over the past year or so has put in a number of actions to restrict the figures.

"In particular with C. difficile we have now tighter controls on the use of antibiotics."

The second biggest increase in cases in Sussex was in hospitals run by Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals Trust, including the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton and the Princess Royal Hospital in Haywards Heath.

The trust saw a 28 per cent increase from 368 cases in 2004 to 472 cases last year.

In 2005 and 2006 the trust's hospitals also had the highest rate of MRSA in the country.

At East Sussex Hospitals Trust, which runs the Conquest Hospital in Hastings and Eastbourne District General Hospital, the number of C. difficile cases fell slightly from 393 in 2004 to 387 in 2005.

The number of cases at the Royal West Sussex Hospitals Trust, which runs St Richard's Hospital at Chichester, also fell slightly from 270 to 261.

Surrey and Sussex Healthcare Trust, which provides services at Crawley Hospital and Horsham Community Hospital, showed the biggest improvement in the county, recording 11 per cent fewer cases of C. difficile in 2005 than in 2004, with 283 compared with 315 the previous year.