Nascimento-Carvalho C M, Moreno-Carvalho O A
Serviço de Pediatria, Hospital Universitário Professor Edgard Santos, Universidade Federal da Bahia, Brasil.
Arq Neuropsiquiatr. 1998 Mar;56(1):83-7. doi: 10.1590/s0004-282x1998000100013.
Bacterial meningitis remains a very important disease world-wide, mainly during childhood. In order to describe the etiology of bacterial meningitis among some children in Salvador, Bahia-Brazil, we retrospectively reviewed 7000 cerebrospinal fluid exams, performed within the period of September 1988 up to August 1995, at the CSF Laboratory, José Silveira Foundation; 892(12.7%) exams met the inclusion criteria; patients less than 16 years of age and clinical meningitis diagnosis. Among 139 cases of bacterial meningitis, H. influenzae type b (Hib) was the most frequent cause (26.0%), all of the cases in children under 5 years. We have been questioning whether the declining Hib disease trend since 1992 has been associated with the use of Hib conjugate vaccines among those children.
