Prevalence of Antimicrobial Drug Resistance of Klebsiella pneumoniae in India

Klebsiella pneumoniae has been associated with different types of infections and one of the most important aspects of Klebsiella is the emergence of multi-drug resistant strains particularly those involved in nosocomial diseases. Fifty -nine clinical isolates were collected from different parts of India. Most of the samples were recovered from respiratory, urinary tract infection and pus cases which were followed by biochemical characterization. Twenty confirmed K. pneumoniae isolates were further tested for antimicrobial drug sensitivity and almost fifty percent of them were found to be multidrug resistant. As per our statistical data, all confirmed K.pneumoniae isolates were resistant to carbenicillin and one among them recovered from sputum sample of a pneumonic patient was resistant to all the antimicrobial agents tested except exhibiting a partial susceptibility to amikacin. In our studies we found that K.pneumoniae strains from clinical cases were highly susceptible to quinolones and the aminoglycoside, amykacin and gentamycin. At the same time over 60 % strains were resistant to chloramphenicol and tetracycline. We also found that 28 to 76 % of them were resistant to cephalosporins (ceftizoxime and cefotaxime). On the basis of statistical binomial test we conclude that piperacillin, carbenicillin, ofloxacine ampicillin, co-trimoxazole and chloramphenicol were significantly resistant, whereas cefotaxime and tetracycline were found to be moderately resistant against Klebsiella pneumoniae.