A national study of ability and disability in five-year old children who had meningitis when they were newborn babies
Research archive
- Imperial College School of Medicine at Hammersmith Hospital, London, UK
- Project Number: 0102.0
- Category: Treatment
- Duration: 2001 - 2004
- Start Date: 01 January 2001
- Type: Lay summary
- View scientific version
The incidence of neonatal meningitis (meningitis in newborn babies) has remained unchanged at around 0.4 per 1000 births over the past 30 years.
Since the 1980s most cases have been caused by Group B streptococcus (GBS) and E. coli, which together now account for at least two thirds of all deaths from neonatal meningitis in the UK and Ireland. The remaining cases are caused by a variety of agents including Listeria, Hib, meningococcal and pneumococcal bacteria, and viruses.
Prolonged labour, premature birth and low birth-weight all increase the risk of meningitis for newborn babies. Although survival has improved, meningitis leaves many survivors with devastating after effects including defects in learning, hearing, speech and language, co-ordination, vision, and behaviour. It may also cause epilepsy.
The aim of this study is to analyse disability levels at five years of age, among children who survived neonatal meningitis during the first 28 days of life in 1996 and 97, compared with children who did not have the disease, as controls. A comparison will also be made with an earlier study of disability among survivors in the previous decade. The period between these two studies coincided with a drop in the neonatal meningitis death rate from 20% to around 7%. This improved survival may be partly due to the change in antibiotic treatment for neonatal meningitis from chloramphenicol to newer cephalosporins, as well as increasing ad-hoc use of preventive antibiotic in high-risk births. Another change has been the rising incidence of premature births. This study will assess the impact of all these changes on the after effects of neonatal meningitis.
Read our news releases about this project:
Meningitis and poor GCSE results - research identifies link
Serious disabilities after meningitis remain alarmingly
Results from this study have been published in scientific journals as follows:
de Louvois J, Halket S, Harvey D.
Neonatal meningitis in England and Wales: sequelae at 5 years of age.
Eur J Pediatr 2005 Dec;164(12):730-4.
https://www.springerlink.com/content/l10g7182366164p4/resource-secured/?target=fulltext.pdf
de Louvois J, Harvey D, Halket S.
The effect of meningitis in infancy on school-leaving examination results.
Arch Dis Child. 2007 Mar 22; [Epub ahead of print].
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=17379662&query_hl=8&itool=pubmed_docsum
This project was featured in the Autumn 2005 edition of our newsletter, Microscope. Click to view.
This project was featured in the Autumn 2004 edition of our newsletter, Microscope. Click to view.
This project was featured in our 2007 annual review. Click to view.