Pattern of meningitis in Al-Ain medical district, United Arab Emirates--a decadal experience (1990-99)

OBJECTIVES: Haemophilus influenzae vaccine was introduced in the United Arab Emirates in 1999. Our objective was to describe the pattern of meningitis in a health district in the decade before the introduction of the vaccine and compare it with the data from elsewhere. METHODS: For this retrospective study we included 128 meningitis cases reported from 1990 to 1999. Information on the cases was abstracted from the case notification forms and clinical and laboratory data from the hospital case notes. RESULTS: H. influenzae was the most common cause of bacterial meningitis (n=59, 46.1%) followed by Streptococcus pneumoniae (n=20, 15.6%). Meningitis was a disease primarily of infants and children and the median age was 15 months. One fifth of the patients (n=27) had neurological sequelae of which 33.3% had seizures and 25.9% developed deafness. 18.9% (10 out of 53) of H. influenzae isolates were resistant to ampicillin compared with 5.9% (3 out of 51) to chloramphenicol. 78.9% (15 out of 19) of S. pneumoniae isolates were susceptible to penicillin. CONCLUSIONS: The epidemiology of meningitis in our health district is similar to the epidemiology of meningitis during the pre-vaccine era in other countries.