Outbreak of neonatal listeriosis in a regional hospital in Kuwait

Abstract

Six newborns with Listeria monocytogenes infection were admitted to the same neonatal unit between 31 October and 3 December 1985. The index case, a preterm baby, was born to a mother who was febrile with an influenza-like illness at the time of delivery. This baby presented with Listeria sepsis and pneumonia. Another child was born from whose mother L. monocytogenes was isolated from the cervix with the same serotype as that in the CSF of her newborn. In the other cases blood and cervical cultures of the mothers were negative, while Listeria was isolated from the CSF of their babies. Five out of six infants developed meningitis between 9 and 12 days after birth. All isolates were serotype 4b and indistinguishable by phage typing. All babies were successfully treated without any major sequelae. Although cross-infection was strongly suggested, the source of the outbreak could not be established. This is the first documented report of human listeriosis in Kuwait.

Neonatal cross-infection due to Listeria monocytogenes

“…In the remaining 13, serogrouping was available for ten of the incidents and two were due to serogroup 1/2, the remaining eight were due to serogroup 4. Evidence of the same L. monocytogenes type being recovered from the mothers of the early-onset cases and environmental sites (where available) and both early and late-onset infants within each episode was obtained by: phage-typing [26, 27, 33, 34, 40, 43, 44]; multilocus enzyme electrophoresis [35, 41]; random amplified polymorphic DNA [46]; restriction fragment analysis [35, 43], plasmid analysis [43] and pulsed-field gel electrophoresis [28, 37, 45].…”

“…Case reports from a further 29 instances were identified from outside of the UK and Ireland occurring between 1936 and 2013. The instances occurred in 11 different countries: ten in France [22][23][24][25][26][27][28], three in Germany [29][30][31], three in the USA [9,32,33], two in Canada [34,35], two in Israel [36,37], four in Sweden [38][39][40], and one each in Costa Rica [41], Chile [42], Italy [43], Kuwait [44] and Spain [45]. A summary of these 29 episodes is shown in Table 2.…”

A Premature Girl with Pallor and Rash

“…Sheep blood agar and chocolate agar media is mainly used for isolation of Listeria. Although the serotyping of Listeria used as epidemiology marker, 9 unfortunately, no serotyping was done in our present cases.…”

A Case of Neonatal Sepsis due to Listeria monocytogenes Serotype 4b: Case report and literature review

“…Güney Afrika'da 1978 yılında bildirilen bir salgında dokuz ay içinde, dokuz bebekte L. monocytogenes serotip 4b'ye bağlı neonatal sepsis olgusu tespit edilmiştir [7]. Kuveyt'te 1987 ve 1989 yıllarında L. monocytogenes serotip 4b'ye bağlı toplam iki neonatal sepsis olgusu tespit edilmiştir [8,9]. Japonya'da 1996 yılında ve İsrail'de 2003 yılında L. monocytogenes serotip 4b'ye bağlı birer neonatal sepsis olgusu rapor edilmiştir [10,11].…”

“…L. monocytogenes serotip 4b'ye bağlı neonatal sepsis olgularının yenidoğan ünitesi içinde de bulaşıcılığı yüksektir. Kuveyt'teki vakada neonatal sepsisli bebek, yenidoğan ünitesi içerisinde salgına sebep olmuş, beş yenidoğanda neonatal menenjit gelişmesine yol açmıştır [9]. İsrail'deki vakada ise L. monocytogenes serotip 4b bağlı neonatal sepsisli bebeğin bakım hemşiresi, bakımını üstlendiği başka bir bebekte, çapraz kontaminasyonla neonatal menenjite sebep olmuştur [11].…”