Bacillus species pseudomeningitis

Bacillus species are aerobic gram-positive bacilli that are usually found in nature in the soil and dust. Except for B. anthracis, Bacillus species are organisms of low virulence, and only rarely cause infections in immunocompromised hosts. The recovery of Bacillus species from body fluids in healthy patients would suggest a Bacillus species pseudoinfection. Bacillus species has been associated with both pseudobacteremia and least commonly, pseudomeningitis. The Bacillus organisms usually contaminate liquid culture media, which have been implicated in Bacillus pseudoinfections of the blood and cerebrospinal fluid. We report a case of Bacillus pseudomeningitis in a normal host. To our knowledge, this is the third case of Bacillus pseudomeningitis reported in the literature.