Enhanced surveillance of Clostridium difficile infection occurring outside hospital, England, 2011 to 2013

There are limited national epidemiological data for community-associated (CA)-Clostridium difficile infections (CDIs). Between March 2011 and March 2013, laboratories in England submitted to the Clostridium difficile Ribotyping Network (CDRN) up to 10 diarrhoeal faecal samples from successive patients with CA-CDI, defined here as C. difficile toxin-positive diarrhoea commencing outside hospital (or less than 48 hours after hospital admission), including those cases associated with community-based residential care, with no discharge from hospital within the previous 12 weeks. Patient demographics and C. difficile PCR ribotypes were compared for CA-CDIs in our study and presumed healthcare-associated (HA) CDIs via CDRN. Ribotype diversity indices, ranking and relative prevalences were very similar in CA- vs HA-CDIs, although ribotypes 002 (p ≤ 0.0001),020 (p = 0.009) and 056 (p