Changes in the clinical distribution and antibiotic resistance of Klebsiella pneumoniae in a tertiary hospital before and after the COVID-19 pandemic
BMC Infectious Diseases·
- DOI
- 10.1186/s12879-026-14277-4
- PMID
- —
- PMCID
- —
- OpenAlex
- —
- Study type
- Journal article
- Publisher
- Springer Science and Business Media LLC
- Article type
- journal-article
- Integrity
- current
Why this research matters now
The findings are positioned to inform antibiotic stewardship and hospital infection control by highlighting temporal shifts in K. pneumoniae epidemiology and resistance patterns around the pandemic transition.
Structured evidence summary
Research question
The study examined how the isolation and antibiotic resistance profiles of Klebsiella pneumoniae shifted across pre-, mid-, and post-COVID-19 pandemic periods within a single Chinese tertiary hospital.
Study design
A retrospective laboratory-based analysis of K. pneumoniae isolates collected at one tertiary hospital in Chongqing, stratified into three time periods (2017–2019, 2020–2022, 2023–2025) and analyzed using GraphPad Prism 10.1.2 and WHONET 5.6.
Population and setting
Clinical specimens yielding K. pneumoniae at a tertiary hospital in Chongqing, with sputum, secretions, and urine as the leading specimen sources; patient age distributions were compared between carbapenem-resistant and carbapenem-susceptible groups.
Main findings
A total of 883 K. pneumoniae strains were identified, representing 20.8% of Gram-negative isolates, with the isolation rate significantly higher in the post-pandemic phase. Carbapenem-resistant K. pneumoniae rates were 3.0%, 12.2%, and 5.0% across the three periods, while extensively drug-resistant K. pneumoniae rates were 2.4%, 8.3%, and 4.7%, respectively. Resistance to several agents (ceftazidime, cefepime, ciprofloxacin, imipenem, and trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole) rose in the mid-pandemic period and partially declined post-pandemic, with imipenem resistance increasing more than threefold mid-pandemic compared with pre-pandemic levels.
Public-health relevance
The findings are positioned to inform antibiotic stewardship and hospital infection control by highlighting temporal shifts in K. pneumoniae epidemiology and resistance patterns around the pandemic transition.
Important limitations
No explicit limitations were stated in the supplied abstract. This summary is limited to the supplied single-article abstract and metadata; the full original paper is required for decision-grade interpretation.
GIDS interpretation
The article is thematically discoverable under antimicrobial resistance and COVID-19-related topics; no connection to a live surveillance signal is established from the supplied evidence.
Related GIDS surveillance
Literature context does not validate, explain, or change a surveillance signal. Exact and contextual relationships are shown separately.
Evidence relationships
This article has 6 auditable classifier relationships to diseases, places, topics, and study design.