Clostridium difficile associated diarrhea

Date of last revision/review: May 2008

National notification

Only confirmed cases of disease should be notified.

Type of surveillance

Routine case-by-case notification to the federal level

Case classification

Confirmed case

Clinical illness (see the Clinical evidence section) and laboratory confirmation of infection:

• a positive toxin assay for C. difficile

or

Diagnosis of pseudomembranes on sigmoidoscopy or colonoscopy, or histological/pathological diagnosis of C. difficile infection

Clinical evidence

Clinical illness consists of diarrhea or fever, abdominal pain and/or ileus.
Diarrhea is defined as one of the following:

• six watery stools in past 36 hours
• three unformed stools in 24 hours for at least 1 day
• eight unformed stools over 48 hours

ICD code(s)

ICD-10 code

A04.7

ICD-9 code

008.45 Colitis due to C. difficile