Maryam Rad,1Gholamhossein Ebrahimipour,2Mojgan Bandehpour,3,*Omid Akhavan,4Fatemeh Yarian,5
1. Department of Microbiology and Microbial Biotechnology, Faculty of Life Sciences and Biotechnology, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran 2. Department of Microbiology and Microbial Biotechnology, Faculty of Life Sciences and Biotechnology, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran 3. Cellular and Molecular Biology Research Center, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran-Department of Medical Biotechnology, School of Advanced Technologies in Medicine, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran 4. Department of Physics, Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran 5. Cellular and Molecular Biology Research Center, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran-Department of Medical Biotechnology, School of Advanced Technologies in Medicine, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
Introduction: Meningitis, which is mostly caused by bacteria, fungi and viruses, and in some cases is caused by chemical irritation, subarachnoid hemorrhage, cancer, etc., is defined as meningitis [1].
Bacterial meningitis, especially meningitis caused by Neisseria meningitidis, is one of the most dangerous infectious diseases [2].
According to the World Health Organization, between 300,000 and 350,000 people get meningococcal disease each year [3].
In this article, we will review meningococcal meningitis in Iran.
Neisseria meningitides:
Neisseria meningitides is a gram-negative bacterium. It is hosted by humans. This bacterium has 13 serogroups (A, B, C, D, H, I, K, L, X, Y, Z, W-135 and E-129) based on polysaccharide capsules. In different parts of the world, these strains have different distribution [4].
Invasion of Neisseria meningitides:
Neisseria meningitides causes infectious diseases worldwide. Meningococcus is a major cause of bacterial meningitis and accounts for 80 to 95% of epidemics of this disease at different ages in most communities.
The prevalence of meningococcal meningitis in different parts of the world is about 1 to 12 cases per 100,000 people, which increases in epidemics.
Mortality from meningococcal meningitis is about 9% to 40% and the rate of stable neurological complications in survivors is about 19%.
Early diagnosis and appropriate treatment are effective in reducing mortality and complications from this disease [5].
Distribution of Neisseria meningitides in Iran:
In Iran, there is no suitable monitoring system in the whole country to detect the causes of bacterial meningitis and studies are limited to a specific organism and region.
Table 1 shows the distribution of Neisseria meningitides in different regions of Iran.
According to studies, Neisseria meningitides is the third leading cause of bacterial meningitis in Iran by PCR (Figure 1), But based on culture, it ranks fourth in 1991 to 2002 and second in 2003 to 2013. [6].
Methods: By searching for keywords in Persian and English databases such as Google Scholar, PubMed and SID related articles were selected and reviewed.
Results: Although meningitis has a low prevalence in Iran compared to other countries,if the PCR is used instead of culture, the real statistics are likely to be higher. On the other hand, part of the results is due to the antibiotics used before hospitalization [6].
Conclusion: Because meningitis is a medical emergency and its correct and timely diagnosis is important, it is expected that a unified program will be implemented to manage this disease throughout the country.