Klebsiella oxytoca: An emerging pathogen?

Klebsiella oxytoca is emerging as an important bacterial isolate causing hospital-acquired infection in adults and having multiple drug resistance to commonly used antibiotics. We analysed our data to observe the current pattern of drug resistance among K. oxytoca isolated from various samples during the period from January 2012 to March 2014 at a tertiary care hospital. A total of 17,335 samples were processed at the hospital laboratory during this period. Klebsiella was isolated from 654 of these clinical samples. Out of these Klebsiella species, 631 (96.48%) were K. pneumoniae and 23 (3.52%) were K. oxytoca. All the K. oxytoca isolates were sensitive to colistin and tigecyclin. However, these isolates showed 58% resistance to imipenem and meropenem. The resistance to gentamicin, amikacin and ceftriaxone was higher at 72%. Resistance to ciprofloxacin and aztreonam was less (58%). All the samples were from patients admitted to ICUs of a tertiary care centre. The data from our study show an increasing burden of infection caused by this bacterium, which is now gaining access to ICUs. It is recommended that Hospital Infection Control Committees must keep a close watch on the antibiotic pattern of K. oxytoca for better patient care.