A Prospective Study of Bacterial Meningitis in Children in Niigata Prefecture

Bacterial meningitis is one of the most serious infections occurring in infants and older children. We prospectively collected information on all children admitted to hospital with bacterial meningitis from 2007 to 2010 in Niigata Prefecture. The most common causes were Haemophilus influenza type b (Hib) and Streptococcus pneumoniae, and 88.0% of the patients were less than five years. Annual incidents rates of bacterial meningitis caused by Hib per 100,000 children less than five years were 4.3, 6.3, 10.7 and 4.3, respectively. Since 21.4% of the patients suffered long-term morbidity, routine use of Hib and pneumococcal conjugate vaccines in all infants is required