Clostridium difficile

Causal agent	Clostridium difficile
Age group	Pre-weaning predominately before 10 days of age
Clinical signs
Acute	Yellow pasty diarrhoea, unresponsive to many antibiotics
	May be mild abdominal distension, in the un-castrated male there might be scrotal oedema
Normal pig	No clinical signs
Infectivity
	Normal contaminant of the environment
Post-mortem Lesions
	Mesoclonic oedema and fluid intestinal contents
	Microscopic examination demonstrates acute multifocal, diffuse erosive colitis with large gram positive rods on the mucosa
	4 day old piglets with a pasty diarrhoea	Post-mortem with liquid intestinal contents and moderate oedema of the colonic loops.
Diagnosis
	Demonstration of organism
	Demonstration of the toxins
	Lack of other obvious causes
Treatment
Treatment	Review antimicrobial treatment programmes. In many cases previous overuse of antimicrobials likely
	Supportive therapy, Clostridium difficile resistant to penicillin
Control	Initiate a feed-back programme of piglet faeces and intestines of affected piglets to sows 6 weeks pre-farrowing and gilts in acclimatisation
Common differentials
	Causes of pre-weaning diarrhoea in piglets less than 10 days of age. Check ventilation system for chilling and draughts etc.
Zoonotic
	Clostridium difficile may cause serious problems in children