The ribotyping of Clostridioides difficile is one of the basic methods of molecular epidemiology for monitoring the spread of C. difficile infections. In the Czech Republic, this procedure is mainly available in university hospitals. The introduction of ribotyping in a tertiary health care facility such as Liberec Regional Hospital not only increases safety in the facility but also supports regional professional development. In our study, 556 stool samples collected between June 2017 and June 2018 were used for C. difficile infection screening, followed by cultivation, toxinotyping, and ribotyping of positive samples. The toxinotyping of 96 samples revealed that 44.8% of typed strains could produce toxins A and B encoded by tcdA and tcdB, respectively. The ribotyping of the same samples revealed two epidemic peaks, caused by the regionally most prevalent ribotype 176 (n = 30, 31.3). C. difficile infection incidence ranged between 5.5 and 4.2 cases per 10,000 patient-bed days. Molecular diagnostics and molecular epidemiology are the two most developing parts of clinical laboratories. The correct applications of molecular methods help ensure greater safety in hospitals.

Department of Clinical Microbiology University Hospital and Faculty of Medicine in Hradec Kralove Charles University 50005 Hradec Kralove Czech Republic

Department of Genetics and Molecular Diagnostics Liberec Regional Hospital 46001 Liberec Czech Republic

Department of Microbiology 3rd Faculty of Medicine Charles University University Hospital Kralovske Vinohrady and National Institute of Public Health 10000 Prague Czech Republic

Department of Microbiology and Immunology Liberec Regional Hospital 46001 Liberec Czech Republic

National Reference Laboratory for Antibiotics Centre for Epidemiology and Microbiology National Institute of Public Health 10000 Prague Czech Republic

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Is shorter also better in the treatment of Clostridioides difficile infection?