Prevalence and Antimicrobial Resistance Profiles of Klebsiella Pneumoniae in Karbala, Iraq Hospitals

Abstract

Background:

Klebsiella pneumoniae a common pathogen emerging as Multidrug-resistant bacteria with high prevalence of infections in all clinical sites, having two pathotypes; classical K. pneumoniae (cKp) and hypervirulent K. pneumonia (HvKp), able to spread the resistance via Horizontal Gene Transfer mechanics.

Objectives:

We aim to determine the rate of infections caused by K. pneumoniae in Kerbala and check their phenotypic antimicrobial characteristics to assess the empirically used antibiotics.

Materials and methods:

Different clinical samples were collected from Al-Imam Al-Hassan Al-Mujtaba teaching hospital and Al-Hussien Medical City then screened for K. pneamoniae, 70 isolates were confirmed by VITEK-2 system, these samples were tested for aminoglycoside resistance, resistant isolates underwent a further investigation for 10 other antibiotics.

Results:

This study found (n=70, 13.01%) prevalence of K. pnuemoniae infections in urine, sputum, swab and blood samples, out of the 70 isolates only 20 (28.60%) of the isolates were HvKp, the samples manifested a high resistance rate against AMP (100%) and cephalosporins FOX (82.50%), CTX (73.0%), CRO (66.70%), FEB (66.70%), and fluroquinolones CIP (66.70%) and LEV (52.40%). The highest resisted aminoglycoside was KN (52.90%) while CN, TOB performed moderately showing only (37.10%) and (38.60%) resistance respectively, least resisted antibiotics were AK (31.40%), NET (28.60%) and carbapenems (30.20%) for MEM and (27.00%) for IMI, only 4 isolates were resistant to colistin (6.30%).

Conclusion:

With our results we concluded that K. pneumoniae has a high rate of infection in all clinical sources, K. pneumoniae isolates were highly resistant to cephalosporins and fluroquinolones due to improper and overuse of these antibiotics empirically, moderately resistant to aminoglycosides (KN, CN, TOB) and should not be used empirically while (AK, NET) are a good second-line treatment for ESBL-producing K. pneumoniae.