1988 Volume 62 Issue 3 Pages 194-199
The traveller came home from China in March, 1987. After four days, his wife, 49 years old, developed a high fever and was admitted to our hospital for disturbance of consciousness, purpura, cyanosis and hypotensin. During the past eighteen years, she had been treated with prednisolone for a mixed connective tissue disease. Neisseria meningitidis serogroup B was isolated from the blood and cerebrospinal fluid. After 24 hours, she died of a typical Waterhouse-Friderichsen syndrome.
From the nasopharynx of her hasband, N. meningitidis was isolated. He was believed to be the carrier who had been infected in China. Three months later, a patient was admitted to our hospital for sarcoidosis. N. meningitidis was also isolated from his nasopharynex. His household had been to China in March, 1987. We investigated 15 tourists of the same group, 21 close contacts of two carriers and 30 healthy volunteers in Niigata. N. meningitidis was isolated only from the nasopharynx of a carrier's child, and not from his 31 schoolmates.
Ofloxacin was administrated orally to two adult carriers in doses of 600 mg per day. Cefixime was administrated to a child carrier in doses of 100 mg. N. meningitidis were eradicated after 24 hours. Ofloxacin and cefixime were thought to be useful for the eradication and chemophylaxis of N. meningitidis.
Although adult meningitis due to N. meningitidis has recently been rare in Japan, we have to pay much attention to imported infective diseases.
