Warning issued as superbug resistant to last-line antibiotics found in all six WHO Regions

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2024-08-02 09:58

Australia; New Zealand; Pacific; International

Klebsiella pneumoniae, CDC, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The World Health Organizaton has issued a warning about a superbug called hypervirulent Klebsiella pneumoniae sequence type 23 (hyKp ST23), which has been reported in at least one country in all six WHO Regions, including Australia. The superbug is resistant to last-line antibiotics and can cause severe infections, even in healthy individuals. The WHO has assessed the risk as moderate, given the challenges with surveillance, lack of information on laboratory testing rates, track and scale of community transmission, the gap in the available data on infections, hospitalisation, and the overall burden of the disease. The WHO recommends that countries increase their laboratory diagnostic capacity to allow for the early and reliable identification of the superbug.

Media release

From:

1 August 2024

DISEASE OUTBREAK NEWS

Antimicrobial Resistance, Hypervirulent Klebsiella pneumoniae - Global situation

31 July 2024

Situation at a glance

In early 2024, the Global Antimicrobial Resistance and Surveillance System on Emerging Antimicrobial Resistance Reporting (GLASS-EAR) issued a request for information to assess the current global situation given the increased identification of isolates of hypervirulent Klebsiella pneumoniae (hvKp) sequence type (ST) 23 carrying resistant genes to the carbapenem antibiotics – carbapenemase genes. K. pneumoniae strains that can cause severe infections in healthy individuals and have been identified with increasing frequency in recent years are considered hypervirulent compared to classical strains because of their ability to infect both healthy and immunocompromised individuals and because of their increased tendency to produce invasive infections.The presence of hvKp ST23 was reported in at least one country in all six WHO Regions. The emergence of these isolates with resistance to last-line antibiotics like carbapenems necessitates the administration of alternative antimicrobial treatment, which may not be available in many contexts. WHO recommends that Member States progressively increase their laboratory diagnostic capacity to allow for the early and reliable identification of hvKp, as well as reinforce laboratory capacities in molecular testing and detection and analyses of relevant virulence genes in addition to resistance genes. The assessment of risk at the global level is moderate given the challenges with surveillance, lack of information on laboratory testing rates, track and scale of community transmission, the gap in the available data on infections, hospitalization, and the overall burden of the disease.

Read more

RELATED LINK FROM THE PAN AMERICAN HEALTH ORGANIZATION (PAHO), published 20 March 2024:

Public Health Rapid Risk Assessment relted to hypervirulent Klebsiella pneumoniae carrying carbapenemase genes in the Region of the Americas - 20 March 2024 - PAHO/WHO | Pan American Health Organization

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