Meningitis is an inflammatoryinfection of the membranes surrounding the brain and spinal cord, which occurseither as a primary disease or secondarily to disease in some other parts ofthe body. Its most frequent causes are Neisseriameningitidis, Streptococcuspneumoniae and Haemophilus influenzae.The epidemiological trend of acute meningitis varies with time and geography.Information on the relative frequency of the isolation and antibioticsusceptibility patterns of these pathogens is scarce in Nepal. To analyze thevarious causative agents of meningitis in all age group patients and to knowthe antimicrobial susceptibility pattern of bacterial isolates from theCerebrospinal Fluids (CSF) of suspected cases of meningitis, were the primeobjectives of this paper. In this cross sectional study, a total 356 CSFspecimens were collected from patients suspected of meningitis and processedmacroscopically, microscopically and microbiologically by standardmicrobiological methods in Emergency Laboratory of Tribhuvan UniversityTeaching Hospital (TUTH) Kathmandu, Nepal over a period of six months, fromMarch to August 2014. Out of 356 CSF samples, 16(4.5%) were found to be culturepositive. Among the culture positive isolates, the most common bacterialisolate was Staphylococcus aureus,4(25%). Isolation rate of Cryptococcusneoformans, the only fungal etiology of meningitis, was 3(18.8%), which wasseen in elderly patients indicating increased susceptibility of C.neoformans in immune-compromised status of patients. All bacterial isolateswere found to be sensitive to Chloramphenicol. The isolation rate of pathogenscausing meningitis from CSF is low (4.5%). Chloramphenicol may be used for thetreatment of bacterial meningitis.
