Acute aseptic meningitis and encephalitis with viral etiology in children from Tehran

ABSTRACT

The incidence of aseptic meningitis and encephalitis in relation to neurotropic viruses was studied in 430 children <14 years of age, from September 1992 to October 1996 in Tehran. Enterovirus was isolated from CSF in 15% of patients with acute aseptic meningitis and all isolates were typed as coxsackievirus types B5 [95%] and B4 [5%]. The highest incidence of enteroviral meningitis [42.5%] was in children under 12 months of age. We found an incidence of meningitis and meningoencephalitis due to mumps-virus [48%] in children under 14 years old. The incidence peak was 5-9 year old in children. The overall rate of infection in boys was three times higher than that in girls. The highest rates of enteroviral meningitis and mumps-virus meningitis and encephalitis were 50% in the summer and 53.5% in the spring [p<0.001], respectively. In this study, Herpes simplex virus type-1, Varicella Zoster virus and measles virus were determined to be the etiologic viral agents of acute encephalitis in 6 children<10 years of age. Our study indicates that mumps virus and enterovirus are important causative agents of aseptic meningitis and meningoencephalitis among children in Tehran