What is it about?
Clostridium difficile causes diarrhoea and colitis, especially in hospitals. A particularly aggressive strain, called 027 (or hypervirulent strain), has driven outbreaks worldwide. In Italy only 8 cases had been reported by 2010. Using a rapid molecular test, we looked for this strain in stool samples from patients with severe diarrhoea in Rome and identified 10 new cases of C. difficile 027 infection, collecting clinical, epidemiological and laboratory information on each patient.
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Why is it important?
Our report showed that the hypervirulent 027 strain was circulating in Italian healthcare facilities, at a time when it was considered rare in the country. Early recognition of this strain is important for infection control and to anticipate more severe disease.
Perspectives
Finding the 027 strain in our patients was an early warning sign. It pushed us to strengthen surveillance and was one of the reasons why I decided to dedicate so much of my research to C. difficile.
Professor Stefano Di Bella
Universita degli Studi di Trieste
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Clostridium difficile 027 infection in Central Italy, BMC Infectious Diseases, December 2012, Springer Science + Business Media,
DOI: 10.1186/1471-2334-12-370.
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