Comparison of Neurodevelopmental Outcomes in Children With Group B Streptococcal Sepsis and Meningitis.

Abstract

To theEditor—We read with interest the Clinical Infectious Diseases supplement by Professor Lawn et al [1] describing findings from a series of studies assessing neurodevelopmental outcomes following invasive group B streptococcal (GBS) disease in infancy. These important studies from South Africa, Mozambique, India, The Netherlands, and Denmark begin to fill an important evidence gap regarding the long-term outcomes of GBS sepsis and meningitis in infancy, including data from low- and middle-income countries [1]. We have previously shown that GBS is the leading cause of sepsis and meningitis in infants <3 months of age in the United Kingdom (UK) [2], yet the burden of neurodevelopmental sequelae following GBS disease, particularly sepsis, is largely unquantified. Thus, we undertook an observational study to describe the neurodevelopmental outcomes of survivors of young infant (<3 months of age) GBS sepsis or of bacterial meningitis (any pathogen) in the UK. Participants were recruited via 2 sources: (1) Parents/carers of children who participated in a meningitis surveillance study conducted in 2010–2013 (n = 661) were contacted and invited to participate [3]; (2) infants <90 days of age with GBS cultured from a normally sterile site born between January 2011 and May 2014 were identified from the UK Health Security Agency national surveillance database used by laboratories to report clinically significant infections electronically [4].