ABC News reports that health officials have urged people not to panic over the outbreaks of the drug-resistant superbug, which is also present elsewhere in the country.
CRKP is an enterobacterium, a relative of E coli, and is resistant to most antibiotics other than colistin - a drug that can cause severe kidney damage.
Studies in the U.S. and Israel have shown about 40 per cent of patients infected with CRKP die.
About 350 infections were reported over a seven-month period in LA last year, according to a study by the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, reports ABC News.
53 per cent of these infections came from acute care hospitals, 41 per cent from long-term acute care hospitals and 6 per cent from nursing homes.
“We do not know if the presence of CRKP in these long-term acute care settings is the result of improper care, or has more to do with the population they serve,” says Dr. Dawn Terashita, a medical epidemiologist with L.A. County Department of Public Health.
"We think that this (the bug) is increasing," Dr Jonathan E Fielding, the county's public health chief, told the LA Times.
The bug tends to strike elderly patients who often stay in facilities for an extended period of time.
Infections also occur among sick patients on ventilators or who take long courses of antibiotics.
Healthy people usually are not affected, according to health experts.
ABC News reports that CRKP is the latest antibiotic-resistant germ that hospitals across the U.S are grappling with.
Up until last year hospitals and laboratories in the Los Angeles area never had to report cases of CRKP, which first appeared on the East Coast.
Unlike other superbugs, CRKP so far has been confined to health care settings and has not spread into the community.
"It is not necessarily more serious than other multiple drug-resistant organisms," said Dr Fielding.
He also urged people not to be alarmed by the news and to not postpone hospital visits.
To prevent the spread of CRKP, health care workers are urged to wash their hands and wear gowns when they visit infected patients, reports ABC News.
Patients are also encouraged to wash their hands before they eat and after they touch hospital surfaces.
Only one antibiotic, called colistin, is effective against CRKP, and it doesn’t always work and can causekidney damage, according Dr. Arjun Srinivasan, associate director for health care associated infection prevention programs at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Patient watch groups are calling for assurances that hospital officials will do more to stop the spread of CRKP and other similar super bugs.
Lisa McGiffert, manager of the Texas-based non-profit Safe Patient Project at Consumers Union, told the LA Times, "You want to be sure there is a strategy in place to contain it so it doesn't get into the community."
Once infected, the person can develop urinary tract and lower respiratory tract infections, pneumonia andmeningitis.
Symptoms include night sweats, a cough with heavy phlegm that is usually a rusty or burnt orange colour, chest pain, fever and shortness of breath.
Large outbreaks of CRKP have been documented in the United States, Greece, and Israel.
Thirdage.com