Detection of Klebsiella spp. in Some Spices Taken from Local Markets

Spices are becoming increasingly important world-wide due to their effectiveness as natural antibiotics, the thing that makes the world nowadays tend to use spices instead of chemical drugs. However, this doesn’t mean they are free of some dangerous pathogens such as Klebsiella spp. which can lead to a wide range of illnesses, notably pneumonia, urinary tract infections (UTIs), and bacteremia. Although we don’t know the natural habitat of this bacterium we find that it thrives in herbs and spices, concluding thus that plants may be its natural habitat. The primary isolation of this bacterium was based first on its growth on general media and then isolation on selective media. Colonies of the microorganisms were counted on different media then Klebsiella was isolated from a selective media. The isolated colonies of Klebsiella were circular, dome-shaped, 3-4 mm in diameter, with mucoid sticky edges, and surrounded by capsule. After this we chose the typical colony and identified it using Polymerase chain reaction PCR and biochemical tests. Our results showed that 32% of examined specimen contained Klebsiella spp.