The mortality of neonatal herpes simplex virus infection

Eduardo Lopez-Medina; Joseph B Cantey; Pablo J Sánchez

doi:10.1016/j.jpeds.2015.03.004

The mortality of neonatal herpes simplex virus infection

J Pediatr. 2015 Jun;166(6):1529-32.e1. doi: 10.1016/j.jpeds.2015.03.004. Epub 2015 Apr 11.

Authors

Eduardo Lopez-Medina¹, Joseph B Cantey², Pablo J Sánchez³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Pediatrics, Universidad del Valle, Cali, Colombia; Centro de Estudios en Infectología Pediátrica, Cali, Colombia. Electronic address: Eduardo.lopez@ceiponline.org.
² Department of Pediatrics, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX.
³ Department of Pediatrics, Nationwide Children's Hospital, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH.

PMID: 25868428
DOI: 10.1016/j.jpeds.2015.03.004

Abstract

This retrospective study characterized the clinical course of 13 neonates who died with herpes simplex virus infection from 2001 to 2011, representing a 26% case-fatality rate. Fatal disease developed at ≤ 48 hours of age in one-third of infants, was mostly disseminated disease, and occurred despite early administration of high-dose acyclovir therapy.

MeSH terms

Female
Herpes Simplex / diagnosis
Herpes Simplex / mortality*
Humans
Infant, Newborn
Male
Pregnancy Complications, Infectious / diagnosis
Pregnancy Complications, Infectious / mortality*
Retrospective Studies

Supplementary concepts

Neonatal herpes