ArticleScientific reports2017
High prevalence of toxigenic Clostridium difficile in public space lawns in Western Australia.
Article in Scientific reports, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 25 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
25 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Prevalence of Clostridioides difficile contamination in healthcare and non-healthcare environments: a global systematic review and meta-analysis.International health · 2026Pooled it
- Changes in the Epidemiology of Clostridioides difficile Infection.Infectious disease clinics of North America · 2025Review
- Article
- The Role ofMicroorganisms · 2025Review
- Biogeographic distribution and molecular epidemiology ofApplied and environmental microbiology · 2023Article
- Genomic Analysis ofMicroorganisms · 2023Article
- Genomic epidemiology and transmission dynamics of recurrent Clostridioides difficile infection in Western Australia.European journal of clinical microbiology & infectious diseases : official publication of the European Society of Clinical Microbiology · 2023Article
- The Environment, Farm Animals and Foods as Sources ofFoods (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Spore-FormingMicrobiology spectrum · 2023Article
- Molecular epidemiology of community- and hospital-associated Clostridioides difficile infections in Jönköping, Sweden, October 2017 - March 2018.APMIS : acta pathologica, microbiologica, et immunologica Scandinavica · 2022Article
- Esculin hydrolysis negative and TcdA-only producing strains of Clostridium (Clostridioides) difficile from the environment in Western Australia.Journal of applied microbiology · 2022Article
- Article
- Clostridioides difficile infection and One Health: an equine perspective.Environmental microbiology · 2022Review
- Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on prevalence of Clostridioides difficile infection in a UK tertiary centre.Anaerobe · 2022Observational
- High Prevalence of Clostridium difficile in Home Gardens in Western Australia.Applied and environmental microbiology · 2020Article
- Laboratory-Based Surveillance of Clostridium difficile Infection in Australian Health Care and Community Settings, 2013 to 2018.Journal of clinical microbiology · 2020Article
- Review
- Evolutionary and Genomic Insights intomBio · 2019Article
- Recurrence of Clostridium difficile infection in the Western Australian population.Epidemiology and infection · 2019Article
- Genomic Delineation of Zoonotic Origins ofFrontiers in public health · 2019Review
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Clostridium difficile is a well-established hospital pathogen. Recently, it has been detected increasingly in patients without hospital contact. Given this rise in community associated infections with C. difficile, we hypothesized that the environment could play an important role in transmission of spores outside the hospital. Lawn samples (311) collected in public spaces in the metropolitan area of Perth, Western Australia, from February to June 2016 were cultured for C. difficile. C. difficile was isolated from the samples by direct and enrichment culture, and characterized by standard molecular methods using toxin gene PCR and ribotyping. The overall prevalence of C. difficile was 59%, new lawn (≤4 months old) was twice as likely as old lawn (>4 months old) to test positive (OR = 2.3; 95%CI 1.16-4.57, p = 0.015) and 35 C. difficile ribotypes were identified with toxigenic ribotype 014/020 (39%) predominating. The highest viable count from lawn soil samples was 1200 CFU/g. These results show that lawns in Perth, Western Australia, harbor toxigenic C. difficile, an important finding. The source of lawn contamination is likely related to modern practice of producing "roll-out" lawn. Further work should focus on identifying specific management practices that lead to C. difficile contamination of lawn to inform prevention and control measures.
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