The World Health Organisation is sounding the alarm about “ultra-virulent” superbugs as it reports increasing numbers of people infected with worrying strains of the virus. Klebsiella pneumoniaeThese strains are resistant to the last antibiotics available for this bacteria and can make anyone severely ill. Little is known about the prevalence or commonness of these bacteria, so the WHO is urging countries to step up surveillance for this threat.
Klebsiella pneumoniae is a ubiquitous bacterium, often found in soil and as part of the human microbiome (i.e. the collection of harmless and beneficial bacteria that live on and in our bodies). Klebsiella pneumoniae They don’t usually cause problems when they live in the mouth, skin, or intestines, but they can cause illness if they reach the lungs or other parts of the body. Klebsiella pneumoniae They are typically opportunistic infections that make people who are already in poor health or have weakened immune systems sick.
Like many dangerous bacteria, Klebsiella pneumoniae It was already a serious problem as it steadily evolved to become resistant to the most common antibiotics used to treat it. Klebsiella pneumoniae Strains that are not only resistant to carbapenem antibiotics (powerful drugs that are often the last resort for treating superbugs) but also have the potential to cause severe infections in both immunocompromised and healthy people are called hypervirulent strains. Klebsiella pneumoniae Sequence type 23, or hvKp ST23.
This week, WHO published an update on the dire situation. In response to these increased reports, WHO’s Global Antimicrobial Resistance and Emerging Antimicrobial Resistance Reporting and Surveillance System (GLASS-EAR) sent a request to countries earlier this year asking if they had recently found cases of hvKp ST23 in their countries. Of the 43 countries that responded, 16 countries, including the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Japan, reported cases of hvKp, and 12 countries specifically reported cases of hvKp ST23. However, even these cases were found by WHO to be just the tip of the iceberg, given the lack of tools needed to reliably and rapidly detect these infections.
“Globally, there is no systematic surveillance that would allow for routine identification and information collection of hvKp strains,” the organizations said in the report. “Identification of hvKp is difficult because it is determined by available laboratory capacity to perform genome sequencing tests and analysis of specific markers that may indicate hypervirulence, and the prevalence of hvKp-associated infections may be underestimated.”
At present, WHO assesses the risk level of hvKp ST23 as moderate, but acknowledges that more data is needed to understand how big a problem it really is and what kind of problem it may become in the near future. As a result, WHO is calling on countries to increase surveillance activities for hvKp strains, including by increasing awareness of hvKp strains among clinicians, laboratories and public health systems.
“WHO encourages Member States to progressively increase laboratory diagnostic capacity to allow early and reliable identification of hvKp, as well as strengthen laboratory capacities in molecular testing and detection and analysis of associated virulence genes in addition to resistance genes,” the organization said.
