Environmental and Health Care Personnel Sampling and Unobserved Clostridium difficile Transmission in ICU
Authors' conclusion
These results challenge the idea that nosocomial transmission is not a primary source of acquisition and underscore the importance of hand hygiene and environmental decontamination.
Study context
- Population
- Patients admitted to 2 intensive care units (ICUs) in Utah, with their room environmental surfaces, health care personnel (HCP) hands and shared environmental surfaces, 2018of 278 ICU admissions
- Participants
- 177 patients
- Outcome
- Identification of transmission clusters based on genomic relatedness between isolates from patients, environmental surfaces and HCP hands (clusters: isolates with ≤2 single nucleotide variants between them)
Methodological details13-week, 2 ICUs, daily culture-based sampling, whole genome sequencing, Data analysed from September 2021 to September 2024
- 13-week
- 2 ICUs
- Daily culture-based sampling
- Whole genome sequencing
- Data analysed from September 2021 to September 2024
Main finding
As reported in the abstract
C difficile transmission
Patients with C difficile linked to other admissions
nearly 8%
Transmission clusters bridging nonoverlapping patient-stays
57%
Higher C difficile movement identified including environmental surfaces and HCP hands vs patient sampling alone
3.6-fold
Observational data: associations, not effects.
Original publication
Environmental and Health Care Personnel Sampling and Unobserved Clostridium difficile Transmission in ICU. JAMA Netw Open. Published 1 April 2025. doi:10.
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