Abstract
Clinical and bacteriological studies were carried out on 69 inborn babies admitted to an intensive care unit. Colonization with Klebsiella pneumoniae increased from 10 per cent on admission to 26 per cent on day 3 and 39 per cent on day 6. Carriage rate was 29 per cent for intestine, 17 per cent for umbilical stump, 13 per cent for throat, 3 per cent for skin and 1 per cent for the external ear. Six babies developed infection with K. pneumoniae, they all had prior colonization with the same organism and 4 of them with the same serotype. Thirteen per cent of samples taken from ward environments were also positive for this organism. Serotyping and klebocin typing of the isolates showed that similar types were present in the babies-both colonized and infected, and the ward environments. Isolates were invariably multidrug resistant (75 per cent) with a high level of minimum inhibitory concentration. © 1985 Oxford University Press.