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Use of purified Clostridium difficile spores to facilitate evaluation of health care disinfection regimens
- Source :
- Applied and environmental microbiology. 76(20)
- Publication Year :
- 2010
-
Abstract
- Clostridium difficile is a major cause of antibiotic-associated diarrheal disease in many parts of the world. In recent years, distinct genetic variants of C. difficile that cause severe disease and persist within health care settings have emerged. Highly resistant and infectious C. difficile spores are proposed to be the main vectors of environmental persistence and host transmission, so methods to accurately monitor spores and their inactivation are urgently needed. Here we describe simple quantitative methods, based on purified C. difficile spores and a murine transmission model, for evaluating health care disinfection regimens. We demonstrate that disinfectants that contain strong oxidizing active ingredients, such as hydrogen peroxide, are very effective in inactivating pure spores and blocking spore-mediated transmission. Complete inactivation of 10 6 pure C. difficile spores on indicator strips, a six-log reduction, and a standard measure of stringent disinfection regimens require at least 5 min of exposure to hydrogen peroxide vapor (HPV; 400 ppm). In contrast, a 1-min treatment with HPV was required to disinfect an environment that was heavily contaminated with C. difficile spores (17 to 29 spores/cm 2 ) and block host transmission. Thus, pure C. difficile spores facilitate practical methods for evaluating the efficacy of C. difficile spore disinfection regimens and bringing scientific acumen to C. difficile infection control.
- Subjects :
- Quality Control
Severe disease
Public Health Microbiology
Biology
Standard measure
Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology
Microbiology
Mice
Environmental Microbiology
Infection control
Animals
Clostridiaceae
Spores, Bacterial
Infection Control
Ecology
Transmission (medicine)
Clostridioides difficile
fungi
Clostridium difficile
biology.organism_classification
Virology
Spore
Disinfection
Disease Models, Animal
Clostridium Infections
Vaporized hydrogen peroxide
Health Facilities
Food Science
Biotechnology
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 10985336
- Volume :
- 76
- Issue :
- 20
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Applied and environmental microbiology
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....534a5108a4767ac620e92651999e0bf9