Clostridium difficile Guidelines

Clostridioides difficile infection in the Asia-Pacific region

Clostridioides difficile causes healthcare-related diarrhoea in high-income countries. Highly resistant spores persist in healthcare facilities, primarily infecting patients who have recently received antimicrobials. C. difficile infection (CDI) has been studied in detail in North America and Europe; however, the epidemiology of CDI elsewhere, including the Asia-Pacific region, is largely unknown. A survey of CDI was performed in 13 Asia-Pacific countries. Epidemiological data on 600 cases were collected and molecular typing undertaken on 414 C. difficile isolates. Healthcare facility-associated CDI comprised 53.6% of cases, while community-associated CDI was 16.5%. The median age of cases was 63.0 years and 45.3% were female, 77.5% had used antibiotics in the previous 8 weeks, most frequently third-generation cephalosporins (31.7%), and 47.3% had used proton pump inhibitors. Recurrence (9.1%) and mortality (5.2%) rates were low, while complications including colitis or pseudomembranous colitis (13.8%), colectomy (0.4%), and toxic megacolon (0.2%) were uncommon. Common C. difficile strains were ribotypes 017 (16.7%), 014/020 (11.1%) and 018 (9.9%), with wide variation between countries. Binary toxin-positive strains of C. difficile were detected rarely. Overall, disease severity appeared mild, and mortality and recurrence were low. Continued education about, and surveillance of, CDI in Asia are required to reduce the burden of disease.

Clostridium difficile in Asia: Opportunities for One Health Management

Clostridium difficile is a ubiquitous spore-forming bacterium which causes toxin-mediated diarrhoea and colitis in people whose gut microflora has been depleted by antimicrobial use, so it is a predominantly healthcare-associated disease. However, there are many One Health implications to C. difficile, given high colonisation rates in food production animals, contamination of outdoor environments by use of contaminated animal manure, increasing incidence of community-associated C. difficile infection (CDI), and demonstration of clonal groups of C. difficile shared between human clinical cases and food animals. In Asia, the epidemiology of CDI is not well understood given poor testing practices in many countries. The growing middle-class populations of Asia are presenting increasing demands for meat, thus production farming, particularly of pigs, chicken and cattle, is rapidly expanding in Asian countries. Few reports on C. difficile colonisation among production animals in Asia exist, but those that do show high prevalence rates, and possible importation of European strains of C. difficile like ribotype 078. This review summarises our current understanding of the One Health aspects of the epidemiology of CDI in Asia.