European Surveillance of Clostridium difficile infections. Surveillance protocol version 2.3

​This technical document is an update of the previous protocol for the European Surveillance of Clostridium difficile infections (CDIs) in acute care hospitals, published by ECDC on 5 May 2015. It describes the methodology, and provides the data collection tools required to achieve the objectives for surveillance of CDIs at European level. Surveillance of CDIs in EU/EEA Member States using this protocol will start in January 2016. Furthermore, a call for tender entitled “Microbiological support to European surveillance of Clostridium difficileinfections” is now open. The objective of this tender is to provide ECDC with services on microbiological support to the surveillance of CDIs in Europe, in particular to increase the proportion of laboratories in EU/EEA Member States that have high accuracy diagnostic practices for CDIs and to increase the capacity of EU/EEA Member States to type Clostridium difficile isolates. In 2011-2012, the ECDC point prevalence survey of healthcare-associated infections and antimicrobial use estimated that each year approximately 124 000 cases of healthcare-associated CDIs occur in European acute care hospitals.