Abstract
Overcoming resistance to carbapenem in Klebsiella pneumoniae is a major concern for public health worldwide, including in India. According to 2024 WHO Bacterial Priority Pathogens List, carbapenem-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae (CRKP) is identified as the top-ranked bacterium. Although studies on this have been conducted in West Bengal, India, data on prevalence and geographical molecular distribution of CRKP remain limited. The study aims to investigate demographic distribution of CRKP isolates for proper epidemiological knowledge, to determine the geographical molecular distribution of CRKP isolates, to detect prevalence of carbapenemase-producing genes among those isolates in West Bengal, India, and to develop a Heat Map for strengthening the epidemiological surveillance system. 128 CRKP clinical isolates were collected from different clinical settings of Paschim Medinipur, Jhargram, Purba Medinipur, Kolkata, Purulia and Birbhum districts of West Bengal, from July 2023 to June 2025. We performed AST & biochemical analysis, followed by end-point multiplex PCR. The demographic distribution analysis was performed by R and SPSS software. CRKP prevalent zones among the sample collection sites were identified using ArcGIS. A Kernel Density Heat Map was used to strengthen the epidemiological surveillance system. From this study, through demographic distribution, it is observed that females and the “≥50” age group are most affected, and the difference is statistically significant (P-value < 0.05). Among the 6 districts, Kolkata exhibited highest prevalence with 40 cases (31.25%), whereas Birbhum showed the lowest prevalence, with 10 cases (7.8%). blaNDM was the most prevalent carbapenemase-producing gene identified in this region. The Heat Map shows the spatial distribution. This study highlights the comprehensive epidemiological burden of CRKP infection in West Bengal, which might help the public health policy makers to strengthen the surveillance system and the clinicians in target therapy by optimizing the use of antibiotics. This will also help in outbreak situation control by proper epidemiological knowledge.