Incidence of salmonella meningitis in Ludhiana (Punjab).

A retrospective study was carried out at Dayanand Medical College & Hospital, Ludhiana (Pb.) during the period from January 1985 to December 1990 to know the incidence of Salmonella meningitis. Salmonella etiology was established in 8 (3.43%) cases out of 233 cases of bacterial meningitis. Out of 8 cases, 7 were children under the age of 2 years. 4 Patients yielded S. typhimurium, 3, S. typhi and 1 S. senftenberg from cerebrospinal fluid samples. No Salmonella organism was isolated from blood cultures except one in which S. typhi was isolated. S. typhimurium was the predominant isolate showing multi drug resistance to commonly used drugs such as ampicillin, chloramphenicol, streptomycin, tetracycline and kanamycin. S. senftenberg also showed similar drug resistance pattern. S. typhi, on the other hand was sensitive to above antibiotics.