SpreadOutbreakofmultidrug-resistantKlebsiellapneumoniae.pdfVIP

Microbial pathogens and strategies for combating them: science, technology and education (A. Méndez-Vilas, Ed.) ____________________________________________________________________________________________ Spread/Outbreak of multidrug-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae in tertiary hospitals T. H. Frandsen 1 and L. P. Andersen1 1Department of Infection Control, Centre of Diagnostic Investigation, Rigshospitalet, Juliane Maries Vej 18, DK-2100 Copenhagen Ø, Denmark Multidrug-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae is one of the most frequent opportunistic pathogens to cause nosocomial outbreaks in tertiary hospitals. The reason is that K. pneumoniae can be spread quickly from the gastrointestinal tract of the patients and further on by the hands of caretakers or inventory to colonize other patients, and thereby lead to nosocomial clonal outbreaks. In 2007 there was a major clonal outbreak of multidrug-resistant CTX-M-15 producing K. pneumoniae in Denmark, since then, the University Hospital of Copenhagen has been monitoring the multidrug-resistant K. pneumoniae clones in circulation using ribotyping. There are three main clonal ribotypes at this hospital. Even though the clonal outbreak from 2007 should now be under control, it is still the most frequent ribotype of isolated K. pneumoniae. This may indicate that certain multidrug-resistant K. pneumoniae strains have the potential to survive and stay in circulation in the hospital environment despite infection control measures. Keywords Nosocomial; clonal outbreak; spread; Klebsiella pneumoniae ; multidrug-resistant 1. Introduction In the last decade infections caused by multidrug-resistant microorganisms have become a major thre