Meningitis, Aseptic / Viral Meningitis 1990 Case Definition

NOTE: A surveillance case definition is a set of uniform criteria used to define a disease for public health surveillance. Surveillance case definitions enable public health officials to classify and count cases consistently across reporting jurisdictions. Surveillance case definitions are not intended to be used by healthcare providers for making a clinical diagnosis or determining how to meet an individual patient’s health needs.

Clinical Description

A syndrome characterized by acute onset of meningeal symptoms, fever, and cerebrospinal fluid pleocytosis, with bacteriologically sterile cultures. (See Encephalitis, arboviral.)

Laboratory Criteria For Diagnosis

No evidence of bacterial or fungal meningitis

Case Classification

Confirmed

A clinically compatible illness diagnosed by a physician as aseptic meningitis, with no laboratory evidence of bacterial or fungal meningitis

Comments

Aseptic meningitis is a syndrome of multiple etiologies, but many cases are caused by a viral agent.

The 1990 case definition appearing on this page was re-published in the 1997 MMWR Recommendations and Reports titled Case Definitions for Infectious Conditions Under Public Health Surveillance.¹ Thus, the 1990 and 1997 versions of the case definition are identical.

References

CDC. (1997). Case Definitions for Infectious Conditions Under Public Health Surveillance. MMWR, 46(RR-10), 1-55. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00047449.htm

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Last Reviewed: April 16, 2021

Source: Office of Public Health Data, Surveillance, and Technology