The epidemiology and typing of Clostridium difficile

Clostridium difficile is normally a harmless environmental bacterium but, under certain circumstances, it can cause hospital outbreaks of disease. To understand the disease epidemiology, outbreaks have been investigated by many different methods. The phenotypic and genotypic approaches to typing are reviewed here and the epidemiology of C. difficile-associated disease is elucidated in light of recent information.