Community-Acquired Clostridium Difficile Infection: Bacterial Infection
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Community-Acquired Clostridium Difficile Infection
Clostridium difficile infection is a bacterial infection affecting the digestive system and the primary cause of diarrhea and pseudo membranous colitis in patients. The disease in the recent past has recorded an increased mortality and hospitalization rates (Lee and Stuart 149). It was earlier depicted as a nosocomial infection in the elderly, a trend that has been changing to infect people within a community some of whom are younger, thus showing a changing epidemiologic pattern (Croissant, Dann, Juneau, Legal, Loeffelholz, Mendias, Savidge and Wagal 1). The infection has of late been related to a higher rate of severe disease in the communities. Screening and preventive interventions have been implemented as a measure to reduce the disease burden with new developments in the management, and controlling risk factors put in place with new preventive measures.
The infection is primarily thought to be hospital-acquired and remains under diagnosed in the community, as there are those who develop the symptoms in the community or within two days of admission to a health facility. Hospitalization, antimicrobial usage, age, surgeries and insertions, immunosuppression and inflammatory bowel infection have proved to be risk factors (Lee and Stuart 150). Clinicians can consider diagnosing patients in the event they experience severe diarrhea even in the absence of causative factors. Assays are used in communities to detect the disease and those with diarrhea are confirmed not to be of a different etiology. The symptoms can include watery stools for more than two days, lower temperature elevation, nausea, anorexia, and abdominal pain coupled with tenderness (Juneau et al 3). The severity of infection dictates the treatment where in mild cases antibiotics are used with severe recurrent cases being treated with advanced medication such as vancomycin. There are newer treatment methodologies being put in place with preventive measures being ultimate solutions.