Klebsiella pneumoniae and Its Growing Concern in Healthcare Settings

Abstract

The increasing clinical incidence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria is a major global health care issue. Among MDR pathogens, Klebsiella pneumoniae (KP) is one of the world's most dangerous superbugs; and becoming resistant to virtually every antibiotic available today. Published articles cited majorly from three sources were browsed using selected keywords. Screening technique was done based on article relevance, topic match and English language match. Duplication of findings was avoided. Prevalence of KP among isolates was determined in different study places and the most alarming figure was seen in study conducted in Nigeria (64.2%) followed by India (33.9%) and Denmark (17.4%). Based on our pooled data from a number of studies conducted at different part of the globe, antibiotic resistances among KP isolates were found to be 100% for Cephradin, 87.5% for Cefeclor, 84% for Tobramycin, 82.5% for Cefotaxime, and 80.4% for Norfloxacin. Whereas, K. pneumonia was found to be more sensitive to Impenem (92.5%), Meropenem (92.5%), Amoxicillin/Clavulanic acid (87.5%), Gatifloxacin (85%), Moxifloxacin (75%); and chloraphenicol (62.8%). Carbapenems have been regarded as the treatment of choice for serious infections caused by extended-spectrum βeta-lactamase (ESBL)-producers. The combination therapy of fosfomycin+colistin demonstrated synergistic and bactericidal effect against one metallobetalactamase producing KP strains that were resistant to fosfomycin. Some of the factors that are responsible for the decline in number of newly discovered antibiotic include reduced financial grant from funding agencies, closure of many major pharmaceutical and large biotech companies; and the lack of financial reward for large pharmaceutical companies to develop new ambitious projects. In conclusion, MDR bacteria are emerging worldwide causing many public health problems and challenges to healthcare. Based on the result from our pooled data, we can conclude that currently we have only few antibiotics that are effective to treat KP.

Antibacterial and Anti-Inflammatory Activities of Crude Extracts of Three Togolese Medicinal Plants Against Esbl Klebsiella Pneumoniae Strains

“…Since these plasmids are easily transmitted among different members of the Enterobacteriaceae, accumulation of resistance genes results in strains that contain multiresistant plasmids. For this reason, ESBL-producing isolates are resistant to a wide variety of antibiotics (Woldu, 2016). Moreover, the emergence of these multiply resistant Klebsiella strains is unfortunately accompanied by a relatively high stability of the plasmids encoding ESBLs (Podschun et al, 1998).…”

<p>Serotyping of <em>Klebsiella pneumoniae</em> and Its Relation with Capsule-Associated Virulence Genes, Antimicrobial Resistance Pattern, and Clinical Infections: A Descriptive Study in Medical Practice</p>

“…Klebsiella pneumoniae is an upcoming superbug of clinical concern. 1,2 The organism possesses a pronounced capsule, described as a K type, which provides a mucoid phenotype to the isolate 3 and is an important virulence factor. The organism has been discriminated into 79 capsular serotypes.…”

Recombinant reporter phage rTUN1::nLuc enables rapid detection and real-time antibiotic susceptibility testing of Klebsiella pneumoniae K64 strains

“…The enormous increase of antibiotic resistances in bacteria has been estimated to lead to an excess mortality of 10 million persons per year by 2050, mostly caused by nosocomial infections (Alebachew Woldu, 2016; Borer et al, 2009). The multiple antibiotic resistance crisis constitutes a tremendous threat to global health and has been declared a global health emergency (Toner et al, 2015) - a view supported by WHO.…”