Introduction: The surveillance of Clostridium difficile infections (CDI) in France was reinforced after the emergence of the PCR-ribotype 027 epidemic clone in 2006; notification of case clusters or severe cases by healthcare facilities (HCF) became mandatory. The French Public Health Surveillance Institute (InVS) and the C. difficile National Reference Center (NRC) launched a national, prospective, multicentric survey to complete available data, in 2009. The survey had for objectives to assess CDI incidence and to characterize the strains responsible for CDI.
Patients and methods: Every month from March to August 2009, HCF notified the total number of new CDI cases, admissions, and patient-days (PD) to the InVS. A subset of participating HCF sent strains, isolated in March 2009 from CDI patients, to the NRC.
Results: One hundred and five HCF with acute care wards and 95 with rehabilitation/long-term care (RLTC) wards participated in the 6-month epidemiological study. The incidence of CDI was 2.28 or 1.15 cases per 10,000 PD in acute care (n=1316 cases) or RLTC (n=295 cases), respectively. Seventy-eight HCF participated in the microbiological study. Two hundred and twenty-four (94.9%) of the 236 strains received by the NRC were toxigenic. The five major PCR-ribotypes were 014/020/077 (18.7%), 078/126 (12.1%), 015 (8.5%), 002 (8%), and 005 (4.9%).
Conclusion: The incidence of CDI in 2009 in France remained lower than in other European countries, suggesting a successful impact of the 2006 recommendations for CDI control.
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