Clostridioides difficile infection (CDI) during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

The ongoing coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has dramatically tested healthcare systems around the world, with serious repercussions on the measures of prevention and control of hospital-acquired infections (HAIs). Among HAIs, Clostridioides difficile infection (CDI) represents one of the most important global public health threats. Although the full impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on CDI remains undetermined, depending on the development of the pandemic in the coming months, in this review literature studies of the last three years have been considered in order to depict the current situation, and make some considerations about possible future developments. If on the one hand, a general reduction in CDI incidence has been reported in several settings, mainly due to the extraordinary reinforcement of infection prevention measures, on the other hand, the critical circumstances experienced in many hospitals have limited the effectiveness of these measures, particularly in the intensive care units (ICUs), increasing the possibility of the occurrence of hospital-acquired CDI (HA-CDI). New concerns have arisen from the decrease in C. difficile testing and the increased use of broad-spectrum antibiotics reported during the pandemic. In particular, overuse of antibiotics and disinfectants may lead to a selection of resistant C. difficile strains not only in hospitals but also in the community. Furthermore, patients infected with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) and patients that have survived COVID-19 may represent a new group of frail patients potentially at a higher risk of CDI, a group that could potentially increase in size due to SARS-CoV-2 evolution. In the dramatic COVID-19 era, the multifactorial nature of CDI has emerged more clearly than before, highlighting the necessity of a strong refocus on efforts to improve prevention strategies and to integrate CDI surveillance in a One Health prospective in order to curtail the public health threat posed by this infection in the next future.

Keywords: Antibiotic resistance; C. difficile; CDI; COVID-19; Coronavirus; HAIs; SARS-CoV-2.