Emergence of carbapenem-resistant hypervirulent Klebsiella pneumoniae

Danxia Gu and colleagues1 reported a fatal outbreak of ventilator-associated pneumonia caused by ST11 carbapenem-resistant hypervirulent Klebsiella pneumoniae (ST11 CR-HvKP) strains at the Second Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University (Hangzhou, China) in 2016. This signals an alarming evolutionary event—the convergence of plasmid-mediated multidrug resistance and hypervirulence in an epidemic carbapenem-resistant K pneumoniae (CRKP) clone—presenting a considerable challenge for infection control.