Meningitis can be cured by just 5 days treatment

Bacterial meningitis is an important cause of morbidity and mortality in developing countries like Bangladesh, but the duration of treatment was not well established.
A group of researchers aimed to compare the efficacy of 5 and 10 days of parenteral Ceftriaxone for the treatment of bacterial meningitis in children and found a very good outcome in favour of 5 days.
The study finding was published recently in medical journal The Lancet.
They did a multicountry, double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomised equivalence study of 5 versus 10 days of treatment with Ceftriaxone in children aged 2 months to 12 years with purulent meningitis caused by different types of bacteria.
The study was done in ten paediatric referral hospitals in Bangladesh, Egypt, Malawi, Pakistan, and Vietnam.
The primary outcomes were bacteriological failure or relapse. The study included 1004 children randomly assigned to study groups in the analyses.
The study interprets that in children beyond the neonatal age-group with purulent meningitis who are stable by day 5 of Ceftriaxone treatment, the antibiotic can be safely discontinued.
Prof Samir Saha, Executive Director of Child Health Research Foundation and Head, Department of Microbiogy, Dhaka Shishu Hospital, Bangladesh, who is one of the investivators of the study said, "It is really a revolutionary work and needs to be translated to policy decisions."