Arboviral Surveillance among Pediatric Patients with Acute Febrile Illness in Houston, Texas.

We instituted active surveillance among febrile patients presenting to the largest Houston-area pediatric emergency department to identify acute infections of dengue virus (DENV), West Nile virus (WNV), and chikungunya virus (CHIKV). In 2014, 1,063 children were enrolled, and 1,015 (95%) had blood and/or cerebrospinal fluid specimens available for DENV, WNV, and CHIKV testing. Almost half (49%) reported recent mosquito bites, and 6% (N = 60) reported either recent international travel or contact with an international traveler. None were positive for acute WNV; three had false-positive CHIKV results; and two had evidence of DENV. One DENV-positive case was an acute infection associated with international travel, whereas the other was identified as a potential secondary acute infection, also likely travel-associated. Neither of the DENV-positive cases were clinically recognized, highlighting the need for education and awareness. Health-care professionals should consider the possibility of arboviral disease among children who have traveled to or from endemic areas.

Divergent cerebrospinal fluid cytokine network induced by non-viral and different viral infections on the central nervous system.

BACKGROUND: Meningoencephalitis is one of the most common disorders of the central nervous system (CNS) worldwide. Viral meningoencephalitis differs from bacterial meningitis in several aspects. In some developing countries, bacterial meningitis has appropriate clinical management and chemotherapy is available. Virus-associated and virus not detected meningoencephalitis are treatable, however, they may cause death in a few cases. The knowledge of how mediators of inflammation can induce disease would contribute for the design of affordable therapeutic strategies, as well as to the diagnosis of virus not detected and viral meningoencephalitis. Cytokine-induced inflammation to CNS requires several factors that are not fully understood yet. METHODS: Considering this, several cytokines were measured in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of patients with undiagnosed and viral meningoencephalitis, and these were correlated with cellularity in the CSF. RESULTS: The results demonstrate that an altered biochemical profile alongside increased cellularity in the cerebrospinal fluid is a feature of patients with meningoencephalitis that are not associated with the detection of virus in the CNS (P < 0.05). Moreover, HIV-positive patients (n = 10) that evolve with meningoencephalitis display a distinct biochemical/cytological profile (P < 0.05) in the cerebrospinal fluid. Meningoencephalitis brings about a prominent intrathecal cytokine storm regardless of the detection of virus as presumable etiological agent. In the case of Enterovirus infection (n = 13), meningoencephalitis elicits robust intrathecal pro-inflammatory cytokine pattern and elevated cellularity when compared to herpesvirus (n = 15) and Arbovirus (n = 5) viral infections (P < 0.05). CONCLUSION: Differences in the cytokine profile of the CSF may be unique if distinct, viral or presumably non-viral pathways initially trigger the inflammatory response in the CNS.

Detection of Herpesvirus, Enterovirus, and Arbovirus infection in patients with suspected central nervous system viral infection in the Western Brazilian Amazon.

Acute infections of the central nervous system (CNS) can be caused by various pathogens. In this study, the presence of herpesviruses (HHV), enteroviruses (EVs), and arboviruses were investigated in CSF samples from 165 patients with suspected CNS viral infection through polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and reverse transcriptase PCR. The genomes of one or more viral agents were detected in 29.7% (49/165) of the CSF samples. EVs were predominant (16/49; 32.6%) followed by Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) (22.4%), Varicella-Zoster virus (VZV) (20.4%), Cytomegalovirus (CMV) (18.4%), herpes simplex virus (HSV-1) (4.1%), (HSV-2) (4.1%), and the arboviruses (14.3%). Four of the arboviruses were of dengue virus (DENV) and three of oropouche virus (OROV). The detection of different viruses in the CNS of patients with meningitis or encephalitis highlight the importance of maintaining an active laboratory monitoring diagnostics with rapid methodology of high sensitivity in areas of viral hyperendemicity that may assist in clinical decisions and in the choice of antiviral therapy.