La. Waggonerfountain et al., THE EMERGENCE OF HAEMOPHILUS-INFLUENZAE TYPE-E AND TYPE-F AS SIGNIFICANT PATHOGENS, Clinical infectious diseases, 21(5), 1995, pp. 1322-1324
Non-type b encapsulated Haemophilus influenzae meningitis (two cases d
ue to H. influenzae type e, two due to H. influenzae type f) was diagn
osed in four children in a 6-month period at the University of Virgini
a. H. influenzae type b was the most common cause of bacterial meningi
tis in the United States before the introduction of an effective vacci
ne, whereas the other five encapsulated serotypes of H, influenzae rar
ely caused invasive disease, The clinical features of non-type b H. in
fluenzae meningitis and the therapy for this infection are the same as
those for type b H. influenzae disease. We report these four cases to
document an increase in infection due to non-type b serotypes of H, i
nfluenzae, and we postulate that this change may result from the well-
documented decrease in H. influenzae type b oropharyngeal carriage and
disease that has occurred because of universal vaccination for H. inf
luenzae type b.