European surveillance of clostridium difficile infections : surveillance protocol version 2.1

The objectives for the surveillance of CDIs are: - to estimate the incidence of CDIs in European acute care hospitals - to assess the burden of CDIs (including recurrent CDI cases) in European acute care hospitals - to provide participating hospitals with a standardised tool to measure and compare their own incidence rates with those observed in other participating hospitals - to assess adverse outcomes of CDIs including death - to describe the epidemiology of C. difficile at the local, national and European level, in terms of factors such as antibiotic susceptibility, PCR ribotype, presence of Clostridium difficile toxin A (TcdA), Clostridium difficile toxin B (TcdB) and binary toxin, morbidity and mortality of infection, and the detection of new/emerging types