How long can klebsiella pneumonia survive outside of the body?
Klebsiella pneumoniae is also well known in the environment and can be cultured from soil, water and vegetables. In fact, it is likely that we have K. pneumoniae in our intestine from eating raw foods such as salads. Two research papers on surveys of bacteria in sprouts found K. pneumoniae to be a predominant part of the microflora3. One research paper found 4% of the lettuce they tested contained Klebsiella pneumoniae4. Klebsiella bacteria are a part of normal life and live inside almost all of us. Although it is something we generally don’t like to think about, we need Klebsiella in our colon to keep us healthy. Unfortunately, once Klebsiella escapes the gut, it can be one nasty bacterium.
