Abortion and meningitis in a Thoroughbred mare associated with Klebsiella pneumoniae, type 1

Bacterial meningitis in five mature horses

“…One case of Klebsiella sp. meningitis was secondary to septicaemia from metritis (Timoney et al 1983) and a case of Actinomyces sp. meningitis was secondary to a pneumonic lesion (Rumbaugh 1977).…”

“…Bacterial meningitis is an uncommon condition in the mature horse (Newton 1998). Individual case reports are present in the literature (Rumbaugh 1977;Timoney et al 1983;Santschi and Foreman 1989a;Newton 1998), although survival rate is generally reported to be poor (Santschi and Foreman 1989b). The causal organisms vary, with Escherichia coli and Streptococcus zooepidemicus cultured from brain and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) in 2 fatal cases (Santschi and Foreman 1989b).…”

Bacterial Infections of the Central Nervous System

“…5 In adult horses, streptococcal species appear to predominate, 2,6-8 although infections with a wide variety of other organisms have been reported, including Actinomyces, 9 Actinobacillus, 10,11 Listeria, 12 E. coli, 1 Psuedomonas psuedomallei (meliodosis), 13 and Klebsiella (Table 14.1). 14 …”

Antimicrobial therapy for bacterial meningitis

“…These include Staphylococcus aureus (Mitchell et al 2006), Sphingobacterium multivorum (Pellegrini-Masini et al 2005), Streptococcus suis (Devriese et al 1990), Klebsiella sp. (Timoney et al 1983), Actinomyces sp. (Rumbaugh 1977), Streptococcus zooepidemicus (Santschi and Foreman 1989), Streptococcus equi (Ford and Lokai 1980) and Listeria sp.…”

“…The conclusion of 3 meta-analyses stated that adjunctive administration of dexamethasone and antimicrobial therapy was beneficial in routine management of suspected bacterial meningitis in industrialised countries (McIntyre 2005). The use of steroid medication (betamethasone) was reported in one case of bacterial meningitis in an adult horse, 24 h after initiation of antimicrobial therapy (Timoney et al 1983). This horse did not survive.…”