Prevalence of Extended Spectrum Beta-Lactamase Producing Klebsiella Species in an Intensive Care Unit

Members of the family Enterobacteriaceae are frequently encountered in hospital acquired infection as they are more important in the spread of non enteric infection in hospital. This is due to the antibiotic resistance, transmissibility, and virulence of the organism, which interact among the patients with similar medical problems who undergo similar procedure and receive similar antibiotics. Nosocomial infections carry considerable clinical and economic burden. Klebsiella species are ubiquitous in nature. They probably have two common habitats, one being the environment, where they are found in surface water, sewage and soil and on plants and the other being the mucosal surfaces of mammals such as humans, horses or swine which they colonize (Ullmann et al., 1998). Klebsiella is well known to most clinicians as a cause of community acquired bacterial pneumonia occurring particularly in chronic alcoholics (Aggarwal et al., 2003).