Occurrence and species distribution of Klebsiella Isolates: A case study at Komfo Anokye teaching hospital (Kath) in Ghana

Different Klebsiella species may vary with the type of infections they cause in both the community and hospital environments. However, in many laboratories in developing countries, differentiation of the genus Klebsiella into species is not generally done during bacteriological diagnosis due to high cost and special skills involved. This study aimed at determining the prevalence of different Klebsiella species in KATH and how they relate to patients’ demographic data. Two thousand one hundred and ninety seven (2197) clinical specimens from the hospital were cultured on blood agar and MacConkey agar and the isolates investigated. The isolates were identified to the species level using various biochemical tests. Klebsiella species were recovered from 205 clinical samples (9.3% prevalence rate) with K. pneumoniae being the highest recovered species (74.1%), followed by K. oxytoca (24.4%), K. rhinoscleromatis (1%) and K. ozaenae (0.5%). Occurrence of Klebsiella isolates in the commonest clinical specimens were sputum (14.1%), wound (12.6%), urine (10.7%) and blood (5.1%). The highest female cases were found in urine and the highest male cases were found in sputum. There was no significant difference between the out-patient and in-patient cases and among the sexes. The dominant species of Klebsiella infections were K. pnuemoniae and K. oxytoca. Pneumonia, UTI, Wound infections and Sepsis are the common infections of Klebsiella in Ghana. This study has also provided information for use in generating national data on the prevalence of pathogens in Ghana. ______________________________________________________________________________