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Topics in Clinical Microbiology Flavobacterium Meningosepticum

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Hilda Ratner
Hilda Ratner*
Affiliation:
Clinical Microbiology Laboratory, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee
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Extract

Flavobacterium meningosepticum, found as a saprophyte in water, soil and the hospital environment, has a relatively short history as a human pathogen. In 1944 Shulman and Johnson reported a case of meningitis in a premature infant due to an unidentified gram-negative bacillus. The term Flavobacterium meningosepticum for that organism was proposed by King in 1959 in her study of a group of previously unclassified bacteria associated with meningitis in infants. The term Flavobacterium—“yellow bacteria”—describes the yellow pigment often associated with members of this genus and meningosepticum describes the strains associated with infant meningitis. Although F. meningosepticum is not commonly considered a human pathogen, it has caused a variety of nosocomial infections including meningitis, postoperative bacteremia, and endocarditis. Most hospital outbreaks of F. meningosepticum infection involve meningitis in newborns and have been linked to environmental sources, mainly water-containing equipment. These outbreaks of neonatal meningitis tend to be severe with a high mortality rate and serious neurological sequelae in surviving patients.

Type
Original Articles
Information
Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology , Volume 5 , Issue 5 , May 1984 , pp. 237 - 241
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America 1984

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