[Outbreak of hospital infection, due to members of the Klebsielleae tribe, in an intensive care unit for infants].

At the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit of the Provincial Regional Hospital, in Río Cuarto, Argentina, nearly all hospitalized infants showed clinical symptoms of septicaemia and gastroenteritis. Neither Salmonella nor Shigella were found in the stool cultures, but Klebsiella pneumoniae was isolated as predominant flora. Three haemocultures displayed K. pneumoniae and Enterobacter cloacae; the other three developed only E. cloacae. Since the infants came from different places and it was possible to isolate members of the Klebsielleae tribe from all of them, a hospital infection was suspected. Searching for the infectious source, K. pneumoniae was detected in the water bath used to keep the feeding-bottles at 37 degrees C. To clarify the existence of any relationship between the strains isolated from patients and from the water bath, several characteristics were compared: biotypes, haemolityc activity, antibiotic sensibility patterns, and pathogenicity, assessed as lethal dose 50%. Identical results were found for the biochemical tests of all the strains belonging to the same species. The antibiotic sensibility patterns and LD 50% showed quite similar values. All bacteria displayed haemolityc activity for rabbit and lamb erythrocytes. It could be considered that the septicaemia had an intestinal origin, and that the infection spread was due to the contamination of the water bath where the feeding bottles were kept.