SummaryBackground-Southern Africa has a high incidence of bacterial meningitis in adults, often associated with HIV co-infection. Even with appropriate antibiotic therapy, mortality exceeds 50% and is not improved with corticosteroids. Glycerol adjuvant therapy reduced mortality and longterm morbidity (deafness) in bacterial meningitis in children and is being promoted. If similarly effective in adults, glycerol would provide a cheap, available adjuvant therapy in Africa.

Mortality from adult bacterial meningitis exceeds 50% in sub-Saharan Africa. We postulated that—particularly in individuals infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)—herpes simplex virus, varicella zoster virus, Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), and cytomegalovirus (CMV) in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) contribute to poor outcome. CSF from 149 Malawian adults with bacterial meningitis and 39 controls were analyzed using polymerase chain reaction. EBV was detected in 79 of 149 bacterial meningitis patients. Mortality (54%) was associated with higher CSF EBV load when adjusted for HIV (P = .01). CMV was detected in 11 of 115 HIV-infected patients, 8 of whom died. The mechanisms by which EBV and CMV contribute to poor outcome require further investigation.

SummaryObjectiveBacterial meningitis in sub-Saharan Africa is predominantly caused by Streptococcus pneumoniae, is often associated with HIV co-infection and mortality rates are double those seen in better resourced settings.MethodsTo investigate the cause of this excessive mortality we quantified the pneumococcal DNA load and six common pro-inflammatory cytokines in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of Malawian adults with culture proven pneumococcal meningitis and correlated the results to clinical parameters and outcome. There are currently no published data relating bacterial load to outcome in adults with pneumococcal meningitis.ResultsThe mean age of patients was 32 years, 82% were HIV infected and 49% had died by day 40. CSF bacterial loads were high (median 6.5 × 105 copies/ml CSF) and there was no significant variation in bacterial load between survivors and non-survivors. All pro-inflammatory CSF cytokines were elevated in the CSF, with no clinically important differences between survivors and non-survivors. HIV status did not affect the CSF bacterial load or cytokine response.ConclusionMortality from pneumococcal meningitis in adults in sub-Saharan Africa is not related to pneumococcal bacterial load. More research is needed to understand the very high mortality from meningitis in this region.