Abstract
Clostridium difficile is a leading pathogen of healthcare-associated infections with an increasing incidence monitored between 2005 and 2013 in Europe. In order to characterize C. difficile isolates, a wide range of molecular methods that target different regions in the C. difficile genome were developed [2].
The comparison of different typing approaches revealed differences in discriminatory power, turnaround time and cost. According to the results from a survey on the typing capacity for C. difficile in Europe, the most widely applied method for characterization of C. difficile isolates for surveillance purposes is PCR ribotyping (25 countries) followed by multi-locus variable-number tandem-repeats analysis (MLVA, 13 countries); whole genome sequencing (WGS) was available only in five countries in 2017.