Privacy Overview
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Always Active
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously.
Functional cookies help to perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collect feedbacks, and other third-party features.

No cookies to display.

Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.

No cookies to display.

Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.
Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads.
Other uncategorized cookies are those that are being analyzed and have not been classified into a category as yet.

Meet Klebsiella pneumoniae

What is it?
Drug-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae infections are associated with more than 600,000 deaths a year globally – more than malaria – and are responsible for many types of infection that are increasingly untreatable, including pneumonia, bloodstream (sepsis) and urinary tract infections, wound or surgical site infections, and meningitis. By itself K. pneumoniae accounts for a third of all Gram-negative bacterial infections globally, making it a major source of antibiotic resistance. 

 

How is it spread? 
While often detected in healthcare settings, it is a global concern as it is able to spread through person-to-person contact typically via the faecal-oral route, as well as through contact with objects, including contaminated medical equipment and surfaces, or through the ingestion of contaminated food. Antibiotic-resistant genes can pass easily between K. pneumoniae strains through a method called horizontal gene transfer.   

Like some other bacteria, K. pneumoniae has the ability to form biofilms, a community of bacteria that forms a matrix on surfaces that is very resilient and difficult to kill. K. pneumoniae is also known for its ability to surround itself in a thick, sticky coating called a capsule. This helps it evade the human immune system, because it makes it more difficult for white blood cells to engulf and destroy the bacteria. People with immature immune systems, such as newborn babies, or people who are immune-compromised, are particularly vulnerable to infection by this bacterium because their immune systems cannot ‘see’ the capsule, which can act like a sort of ‘invisibility cloak’. 

Gardp Sm Landscape Superbug Kp

Where is it found?
Drug-resistant K. pneumoniae were first detected in the USA in the mid-20th century, but have since become a problem in countries in all corners of the world. The first case of extensively drug-resistant hypervirulent K. pneumoniae – which is resistant to all but one class of antibiotic and very good at infecting people – was detected in Taiwan in 1986. Since then it has spread epidemically through China, South Korea and Japan, with cases now reported in India and Europe.  

Similarly, in 2000 in North Carolina, USA, a gene that causes resistance to certain types of antibiotics was first identified in K. pneumoniae, a common cause of bloodstream infections (sepsis) with high morbidity and mortality. Within a couple of years, these resistant genes were detected in New York and then Israel. By 2008, they had reached Italy, Colombia, the UK, Sweden and India, and today can be found across the globe.  

 

Drug resistance
Drug-resistant mechanisms notwithstanding, K. pneumoniae belongs to a particularly hardy group of bacteria, called Gram-negative bacteria. Unlike Gram-positive bacteria, these have an additional outer layer protecting them that make it more difficult for antibiotics to enter the cell and kill them. K. pneumoniae also possess proteins that can stop antibiotics that have entered its outer layer from penetrating any further by pumping them back out of the cell. 

K. pneumoniae has in recent decades acquired a wide variety of resistance mechanisms to a range of antibiotics. For drugs such as penicillins and cephalosporins, these mechanisms include altering the proteins to which the antibiotics bind in order to work, and the production of beta-lactamases, enzymes that inactivates these antibiotics.