Purpose: Clostridium difficile infection (CDI) is a serious healthcare-associated infection (HAI) now being increasingly reported from hospitals across India. However, there is a paucity of data on the incidence of and impact of control measures on CDI in India.
Materials and methods: This is a retrospective study conducted at a tertiary care hospital in Mumbai from January 2016 to December 2017. All patients with healthcare-onset diarrhoea were tested for C. difficile by glutamate dehydrogenase (GDH)/toxin assay or nucleic acid amplification test (NAAT). CDI was defined as either GDH and toxin positive or NAAT positive. The incidence of CDI was calculated per 1000 patient days. Demographic features of patients with CDI including age, sex, duration of hospitalisation before onset of CDI, antibiotic use and treatment administered were summarised.
Results: A total of 67 patients had CDI in the study period with a mean incidence of 0.2/1000 patient days. A halving of the CDI incidence was seen after intensification of the CDI prevention bundle. The mean age of affected patients was 64 years and CDI occurred at a median duration of 2 weeks after hospitalisation. Eighty-seven per cent of the patients were on antibiotics at the time of diagnosis of CDI. The crude mortality rate was 22%.
Conclusions: CDI is an emerging HAI in India. All hospitals need to set up policies for surveillance, testing, treatment and prevention of CDI based on recent international guidelines and local infrastructure/logistics.
Keywords: Clostridium difficile; control; glutamate dehydrogenase and toxin; incidence; nucleic acid amplification test.