Occurrence of ESBL-producing Klebsiella pneumoniae in hospital settings and waste.

Presence of multiple drug resistant pathogens in hospital waste is a serious public health concern, because it may ultimately be disseminated to the human. Current study was designed with the objective to estimate the occurrence of ESBL-producing K. pneumoniae in hospital settings and waste. For this purpose, cross sectional study for a period of one year was designed and non-probability sampling techniques was used to collect total n=112 samples from various sample sources of hospital waste including ward waste, operation theatre waste, wastewater and hospital sludge. Isolation of the K. pneumoniae was done by using selective agar, biochemical identification of the isolates was done through API 20E kit (bioMérieux, France). Molecular identification of the isolates was done by amplifying 16SrDNA with PCR. According to CLSI guidelines disc diffusion assay was performed for antibiotic susceptibility profiling. PCR of MDR isolates was done for the molecular detection of various ESBL genes. Results of the study showed 17 (15%) percentage prevalence of MDR K. pneumoniae from all 112 collected samples. Among various sample sources wastewater showed the highest percentage (23%) prevalence of MDR K. pneumoniae. In 17 confirmed isolates blaCTX-M and blaCTX-M1 were found in 13 (76%) and 12 (71%) respectively which showed the highest prevalence as compared to all other investigated genes. While blaTEM, blaSHV, blaNDM-1 and blaOXA-48 were found with percentage prevalence 9 (53 %), 1 (6%), 9 (53%) and 6 (35 %) respectively. Whereas blaKPC, blaIMP, blaVIM and blaGIM were not detected in any of the isolate. Taking together, strict rules and regulations should be adopted at public as well as hospital level to restrict the dissemination of antibiotic resistance from hospital environment to humans.