Acute bacterial meningitis in Nepal.

This study was conducted at Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital, a tertiary care hospital in Nepal from January 2001 to March 2002. The prevalence of bacterial meningitis, its causative organisms and their antibiotic sensitivity patterns were studied in cerebrospinal fluid of 448 suspected cases. The prevalence of acute bacterial meningitis was 8.3%. There was no significant association (p > 0.05) of the disease with gender (X2 = 0.0234) and among different age groups (X2 = 6.07875) studied. The causative bacteria were Pseudomonas aeruginosa (24.3%), Klebsiella pneumoniae (16.2%), Staphylococcus aureus (16.2%), coagulase negative staphylococci (10.8%), Escherichia coli (10.8%), Streptococcus pneumoniae (8.2%), Neisseria meningitidis (5.4%), Acinetobacter spp. (5.4%) and Aeromoanas spp. (2.7%). Imipenem was the most effective antibiotic, however, 11.1% of P. aeruginosa, 25.0% of E. coli and 50.0% of Acinetobacter spp. were resistant to the drug.