Master's thesis of Applied Science: Improved detection of Clostridium difficile and a new method to type highly lethal hospital-acquired infections due to C. difficile

The incidence of hypervirulent epidemic Clostridium difficile has increased around the world and now in Australia. Assays that are capable of rapidly identifying these strains would enable earlier diagnosis and timely infection control response. The aims of the first part of the study were to validate and develop a molecular technique for the rapid diagnosis of toxigenic C. difficile from faecal samples using a multiplex real-time PCR assay and the development of a real-time PCR assay to identify strains carrying the frame shift mutation in the tcdC gene characteristic of hypervirulent strains.