Clostridium difficile is an important healthcare-associated pathogen. Hypervirulent strains such as those belonging to ribotype 027 have been widely reported in recent years. A second strain associated with hypervirulence is ribotype 078 and the prevalence of Clostridium difficile infection (CDI) due to this ribotype appears to be increasing. This report describes an outbreak, in which 15cases of CDI due to ribotype 078 were detected in an Irish hospital and from a nursing home in the hospital's catchment area. C. difficile ribotype 078 accounted for 15% of total isolates submitted for ribotyping. The average age of patients with CDI due to ribotype 078 was 76 years. Forty-six percent of patients experienced recurrence of symptoms within eight weeks of diagnosis and CDI was felt to have directly contributed to five of the eight deaths. Use of enhanced DNA fingerprinting identified clusters within the 15 cases and suggested hitherto unrecognised links between some patients with CDI. Such approaches offer the promise to delineate common sources and transmission routes for C. difficile.
Copyright 2010 The Hospital Infection Society. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.