A Five Years Retrospective Study on Etiology and Clinical Analysis of Meningitis in St. Paul’s Hospital Millennium Medical College Pediatric Ward from 2012-2016

Meningitis is the sever CNS pyogenic infections which primarily affects infants and children. Ethiopia is one of the countries where meningitis is endemic and frequent episodes of meningococcal epidemics are very common in the dry season (December to June). The main purpose of this study was to identify determinants and clinical analysis of meningitis in pediatrics ward admitted to St.Paul’s hospital millennium medical college pediatrics wards from 2012-2016. A retrospective study on etiology and clinical analysis of meningitis was conducted at the pediatric unit. The study population was all pediatric patients admitted with meningitis that were presented in ward during the study period. Those fulfilling the mentioned inclusion criteria were included. The data were collected using a structured format in September /2016. From the study population 95 cases fulfilled the inclusion criteria and 64 & 31 of them were males and females, respectively making a male to female ratio of 2:1. The most significant seasonal variation was observed for N. meningitidis having high incidence in the 2nd quarter (April to June). In the dry season 18 cases were diagnosed using the culture results. Culture findings also revealed that S. pneumonia was one of the commonest causes of bacterial meningitis. The most common symptom was fever with high grade fever (>38oC) recorded in 84 (88.4%) of cases. Most (65.5 %). of clients were recovered from meningitis at the end of the treatment where as death was the second outcome with 17(20.2 %) cases ended up with death. Neurological or other complications were seen in 9(10.7 %) cases.