Fig. 1

Viability of C. difficile CD630 and R20291 spores following hypochlorite treatment. Spores were incubated with 0.1%, 0.5% and 1.0% hypochlorite for 10 min. Controls with water and thiosulphate alone are also shown. The R20291 strain, in particular, is very resilient to low concentrations below 1.0% hypochlorite. Stars indicate the statistical significance of the reduction compared to the respective water control, with 2 stars for p \(\le\) 0.01 and 4 stars for p \(\le\) 0.0001; “ns” indicates no significance