Nicola Sturgeon made announcement to make use of new technology throughout Scotland, so that the problem of cases of Clostridium difficile can be tackled.

Health Secretary, Nicola Sturgeon said that boards would have to lessen rates of the bug by at least 50% amongst over-65s by the end of March 2011.

It replaces a preceding target of 30%, which has already been surpassed by hospitals.

Ms. Sturgeon yesterday as well announced additional measures to tackle hospital superbugs with new bed supervision IT system being rolled out in Scotland.

The announcement came while visiting a St. John's Hospital in Livingston, which is amongst those, who have been testing the new system, which keeps a track on patients, as they move in the region of the hospital to restrict the multiplication of infections.

A target was formerly set to reduce cases of C difficile by almost 30%from the 6,516 cases seen in Scotland in 2007-8.

But, numbers for January to December 2009 depicted that the total had already been cut to 3,625, down by 44%.

The new number means that the total number of cases for the year 2010-11 should be less than 3,258.

The Scottish Government said all boards were on target to meet the goal.