ESBL-Producing Strain of HypervirulentKlebsiella pneumoniaeK2, France

To the Editor: Klebsiella pneumoniae is mainly responsible for hospital-acquired urinary tract infections, bacteremia, pneumonia and intra-abdominal infections. However, since the mid-1980s, K. pneumoniae has also been described as the cause of highly invasive community-acquired infections (1,2). The K. pneumoniae isolates associated with such infections are often hypermucoviscous and frequently belong to the capsular serotypes K1 or K2. Two of the most extensively studied genes associated with invasive infections are a mucoviscosity-associated gene A (magA) in serotype K1 and a regulator of mucoid phenotype A (rmpA). These strains of hypervirulent K. pneumoniae (hvKP) are now circulating worldwide (1,2).