(Sheryl Ubelacker/ Canadian Press) — Rates of Clostridium difficile, an often recurring bacterial infection of the colon that causes debilitating diarrhea, have fallen dramatically in hospitals across Canada since 2009, a study has found.

In a study published Monday in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, researchers report that hospital-associated C. difficile infections dropped by 36 per cent between 2009 and 2015.

“There’s probably a number of interventions that led to that decrease,” said lead author Dr. Kevin Katz, medical director of infection prevention and control at North York General Hospital in Toronto.

Improvements in infection control measures, such as improved testing, more judicious use of antibiotics, frequent hand-washing and more frequent, intense cleaning of hospital facilities in the last decade may have contributed to the drop in infection rates, he said.