Drug-resistant bug Klebsiella !!!
Week [23-29 November]
Doctors report that third-generation antibiotics — carbapanems — are failing to treat the Klebsiella pathogen, leading to higher mortality in patients and peg the resistance at up to 50 per cent.
In Mumbai, the bug is being recorded in 10-20 per cent of the patients in ICUs of major public hospitals.
Cases of colistin-resistant Klebsiella have started emerging, including four in Mumbai.
Colistin is the last antibiotic available in the world for infections that the strongest antibiotics fail to treat.
Klebsiella causes urinary tract infections, ventilator-acquired pneumonias and blood stream infections (sepsis) among other conditions and is proving to be fatal in 30 to 40 per cent of the patients who have contracted it — usually during a long stay in the hospital, particularly in the intensive care unit.