Carbapenem-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae (CRKP) infection is a serious problem in hospitals worldwide. We monitored a tertiary hospital in Changchun, Jilin Province, China, and found that CRKP was the major species among the carbapenem-resistant isolates in sewage. Subsequently, we evaluated the drug susceptibility, resistance genes, virulence genes, outer pore membrane protein-related genes (OmpK35 & OmpK 36), multi-locus sequence typing and replicons, biofilm formation capabilities, and resistance to chlorine-containing disinfectants among KP isolates. Identification of drug sensitivity, multiple resistance profiles were observed including 77 (82.80%) multidrug resistant (MDR), 16 (17.20%) extensive drug resistant (XDR). Some antibiotic resistance genes were detected, the most prevalent carbapenemase gene was blaKPC, and 16 resistance genes were associated with other antibiotics. In addition, 3 (3.23%) CRKP isolates demonstrated loss of OmpK-35 and 2 (2.15%) demonstrated loss of OmpK-36. In the detection of multi-locus sequence typing (MLST), 11 ST11 isolates carried virulence genes. The most common replicon type was IncFII. Biofilm-forming capabilities were demonstrated by 68.8% of the isolates, all of which were resistant to chlorine-containing disinfectants. The results of the study showed that antibiotic-resistant isolates, especially CRKP, could resist disinfectants in hospital wastewater, and improper treatment of hospital wastewater may lead to the spread of drug-resistant bacteria and their genes. Thus, these bacteria must be eliminated before being discharged into the municipal sewage system.
Copyright: © 2023 Liu et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.