Abstract

Clostridioides (Clostridium) difficile presents a significant health risk to humans and animals. The complexity of the bacterial–host interaction affecting pathogenesis and disease development creates an ongoing challenge for epidemiological studies, control strategies and prevention planning. The recent emergence of human disease caused by strains of C. difficile found in animals adds to mounting evidence that C. difficile infection (CDI) may be a zoonosis. In equine populations, C. difficile is a known cause of diarrhoea and gastrointestinal inflammation, with considerable mortality and morbidity. This has a significant impact on both the well-being of the animal and, in the case of performance and production animals, it may have an adverse economic impact on relevant industries. While C. difficile is regularly isolated from horses, many questions remain regarding the impact of asymptomatic carriage as well as optimization of diagnosis, testing and treatment. This review provides an overview of our understanding of equine CDI while also identifying knowledge gaps and the need for a holistic One Health approach to a complicated issue.

RAS ID

44322

Document Type

Journal Article

Date of Publication

3-1-2022

Volume

24

Issue

3

Funding Information

National Health and Medical Research Council

PubMed ID

35001483

School

School of Medical and Health Sciences

Grant Number

NHMRC Number : APP1138257

Grant Link

http://purl.org/au-research/grants/nhmrc/1138257

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

Publisher

Wiley

Comments

Hain‐Saunders, N., Knight, D. R., Bruce, M., & Riley, T. V. (2022). Clostridioides difficile infection and One Health: An equine perspective. Environmental Microbiology, 24(3), p.985-997. https://doi.org/10.1111/1462-2920.15898

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Link to publisher version (DOI)

10.1111/1462-2920.15898