Neonatal meningitis in a general hospital in Lima, Peru, 2008 to 2015

Abstract

Aiming at describing the incidence, clinical characteristics and factors associated with neonatal meningitis (NM), a case series study was conducted from 2008 to 2015, where 53 neonates, 10 with early onset NM and 43 with late onset were included. An incidence of 1.5 per thousand live births and a lethality of 3.8% were found. The associated factors were peripartum fever, urinary tract infection and chorioamnionitis (P < 0.05). Frequent symptoms were fever (84.9%), hypotonia (77.4%) and hypoactivity (73.6%). In the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), the cases of early NM presented a median of 330 leukocytes/μl and 29 mg/dl of glucose, and the cases of late NM presented 170 leukocytes/μl and 32 mg/dl of glucose. The most common bacteria were Listeria monocytogenes (16.9%) and negative coagulase staphylococcus (11.3%). In conclusion, the incidence was high compared to other studies and the associated factors were the expected.