Victoria Bîrluţiu 1, Cornelia Ceianu 2, Claudia Bucur 1
1 Clinical Hospital for Infections Diseases, County Clinical Emergency Hospital, Sibiu
2 Cantacuzino Institute, Bucharest
Abstract
The West Nile virus infection (WN) was identifi ed in Romania through the acute meningitis and encephalitis epidemic in 1996 associated with an unusually high rate of mortality and sequel rate. The forms of WN infection without connected brain damage remain unidentifi ed in the absence of the acute phase serology (IgM WNV) given the fact that 80% of the WN infections progress asymptomatically, 20 % as feverish syndromes and less than 1 % may present CNS disease. An aspect novel to the field literature is the association of the WN infection with a maculopapular exanthema in non-feverish conditions, aspect which we would like to present as follows. The studied case may testify to WN virus circulation within the Romanian boundaries up to date, 2008, having a display of clinical forms which have as main characteristics not the neurological signs but rather hypothermia and inter-infectious exanthema. Although uncommon, the maculopapular eruption accompanied or not by pruritus and cutaneous hyperesthesia, may suggest, under certain environmental conditions (hot season with mosquito readership in the area) serological investigation for the WN infection.