Prevalence Study of Multi-drug Resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae Strains Isolated from Respiratory Tract Infections

Resistant strains of Klebsiella pneumonia are one of the most prevalent cause of nosocomial and especially respiratory tract infections al-around the world. The present investigation was carried out to study the prevalence of antibiotic resistance in K. pneumonia strains of hospitalized patients suffered from RTIs. Three-hundred and fifty respiratory samples were collected from hospitalized patients of both sexes and various ages. Samples were cultured and those that were K. pneumonia-positive were subjected to 16S rRNA based-PCR amplification and disk diffusion method. Of 350 samples studied, 25 samples were positive for K. pneumonia (7.14%). Distribution of K. pneumonia in male and female patients were 8.33% and 5.88%, respectively (P <0.05). Older than 60 years old and younger than 20 years old patients had the highest prevalence of K. pneumonia. Our K. pneumonia isolates had the highest levels of resistance against gentamycin (96%), ampicillin (92%), erythromycin (84%), ciprofloxacin (76%), sulfamethoxazole (76%). Primary identification of K. pneumonia-positive patients and their treatment with imipenem antibiotic based on the results of disk diffusion method can control distribution of K. pneumonia RTIs.