More than five years after The Lancet revealed the presence of anti-microbial resistance superbug in India, the government has disclosed that Klebsiella, another bacteria is increasingly acquiring res
More than five years after The Lancet revealed the presence of anti-microbial resistance superbug in India, the government has disclosed that Klebsiella, another bacteria is increasingly acquiring resistance to the third generation of antibiotics.
Union health minister J.P. Nadda has said that high percentage of resistance has been reported from hospitals. “Klebsiella is increasingly acquiring resistance to third generation of antibiotics. The infections due to such resistant strains of bacteria are resulting in morbidity and mortality. The government is aware of the high rate of antimicrobial resistance to common pathogens of public health importance including Kleibsiella,” said the minister in Lok Sabha on Friday.
Interestingly, the bug was treatable until about three years back with moderate class of antibiotics. Today, the situation is such that even the third generation antibiotics like cabapanems are failing to threaten the bacteria, resulting in morbidity and mortality. In some states, the bug is being recorded in about 15-20 per cent of the patients in the Intensive Care Unit of major public hospitals.
According to doctors, deadly Klebsiella attacks patients by causing sepsis, ventilator acquired pneumonias, urinary tract infections etc. Those contracting it are usually long-stay patients of ICU. Dr Chand Wattal, head of the Microbiology Department at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital said that strenghthening infection control practies can help control the situation. “The bug is there for a while and it has reached to such a stage where it has become difficult to treat patients specially with compromised immunities in ICU settings.”
It is not hospital-centric, the cases are reported from almost all major tertiaty care centers. Good hospital infection control practices can improve or control the situation.”
Mr Nadda said that the resistant strains of Kleibsiella are currently contained by strengthening hospital control practices and promoting rational use of antibiotics.
Earlier, even International Journal of Bioscience, Biochemistry and Bioinformatics had revealed the presence of Klebsiella in India. The experts had collected 59 clinical isolates from different parts of India. The samples were recovered from respiratory, urinary tract infection and pus cases. As per the study, 50 percent of them were found to be multidrug resistant. “As per the 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,” the experts has noted.
The presence of antimicrobial resistance has been there for a while. In 2010, The Lancet had blamed India for spreading antimicrobial resistant superbug, following which a national programme on containment of antimicrobial resistance was launched with an aim to gather anti-microbial resistance data for common bacterial pathogens including Klebsiella through surveillance activities.
