VIDEO: C. difficile incidence rate not lower with COVID-19 precautions
In this video, Paul Feuerstadt, MD, FACG, AGAF, discussed the annual incidence rate of Clostridioides difficile infection during and in the years preceding the COVID-19 pandemic.
In 2011, health care-associated infections, as compared with community-associated infections, accounted for two-thirds of C. difficile infections, Feuerstadt, assistant clinical professor of medicine at Yale University, said. By contrast, in 2017, the incidence rate was split between health care-associated and community-associated infections, with the incidence of health care-associated infections decreasing while the incidence of community-associated infections remaining the same. This was primarily due to better infection control, Feuerstadt noted.
“The logical extension would be with even better infection control, we might be able to drive down the rates of C. difficile infection,” Feuerstadt said.
When comparing the rates of C. difficile testing and positive results during February to May 2019 and the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic from February to May 2020, the rates were the same, according to Feuerstadt.
“Even though we were even more careful with our infection control having not known how COVID-19 was transmitted and trying to block any transmission within the health care system, and the patients with COVID-19 were getting the kitchen sink thrown at them with antimicrobials and steroids and all these other things, the incidence of C. difficile didn’t change.”
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