Doctors in Canada have devised a way of putting healthy people's fecal matter into a special pill in order to cure a serious intestinal infection.

The 'poop pill' has cured patients with the clostridium difficile (C.diff) bug, which can cause severe diarrhoea and vomiting, and is a frequent cause of hospital-acquired infection.

The 27 patients on whom the new pill was successfully tested had failed to find a cure with antibiotic therapy.

Dr Thomas Louie, from the University of Calgary, has developed a coated pill containing fecal matter which has been specially processed in a laboratory.

The new treatment overcomes a frequent obstacle to dealing effectively with C.diff - the fact that antibiotics can kill this bug but also kill 'good' bacteria in the intestines, leaving people susceptible to future infections.

The new pill can restore good bacteria to the gut and help prevent future infections. The 'poop pill' treatment involves patients taking over 30 tablets in one sitting.

Dr Louie told an infectious disease conference in Toronto that he had treated 27 patients successfully with the new pill. All had previously had at least four C.diff infections and relapses, but they did not get a recurrence of the bug after taking the new pill.

According to the HSE's Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HPSC), there have been over 1,600 new cases of C.diff infection officially reported in Ireland over the past year.