Abstract

Introduction: Meningitis is a dreaded disease with high rates of mortality and morbidity. it may be bacterial, tuberculous or viral meningitis but the exact burden of this disease entity and of the various types is not clearly estimated in Jharkhand and this study was carried out to estimate the relative incidence of different types of meningitis in Jharkhand.

Materials and Methods: a hospital based prospective observational study was carried out on 120 patients admitted with signs and symptoms of meningitis at RIMS, Ranchi, Jharkhand.

Result:  The most common type of meningitis was found to be pyogenic meningitis with 64 cases out of 120 (53.33%) followed by tuberculous (40 out of 120- 33.33%) and viral meningitis (16 out of 120-13.33%). Male incidence was 75% in pyogenic meningitis as also in tuberculous and viral meningitis and female incidence was 25% in all the three types of meningitis. Also the incidence was highest in the age group 21 to 30 years for bacterial and tuberculous meningitis whereas for viral meningitis the highest incidence was found in the age group 16-20 yrs.

Conclusion: The incidence of pyogenic meningitis has surpassed that of tuberculous meningitis probably because of increased and better health care facilities towards Tuberculosis and poor hygiene and increased exposure of males to risk factors for pyogenic meningitis (which need to be assessed for prevention and better approach towards pyogenic meningitis) .

Keywords: meningitis, relative incidence in Jharkhand, sex distribution of meningitis, age distribution of meningitis.