ENCEPHALITIS, ARBOVIRAL

Question 1

What does it include?

Answer 1

Mosquito-borne encephalitis (Western Equine encephalitis, Eastern Equine encephalitis, St. Louis
encephalitis, California virus encephalitis)
Tick-borne encephalitis
West Nile Virus
Chikungunya
Japanese Encephalitis and others.

Question 2

A broad category of central nervous system infections. Symptoms can include headache, confusion or
other alteration in sensorium, nausea, and vomiting

Answer 2

Encephalitis

Question 3

Signs and symptoms

Answer 3

fever, meningismus (e.g., neck stiffness, intolerance of bright light, headache), cranial nerve palsies (involving the muscles of the face), paresis or paralysis,
sensory deficits, altered reflexes, convulsions, abnormal movements, or coma of varying degree

Question 4

Laboratory criteria required:

Answer 4

Any of the following:
• Fourfold or greater change in virus-specific serum antibody titer;
• Isolation of virus from, or demonstration of viral antigen or genomic sequences in, tissue, blood, cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), or other body fluid;
• Virus-specific immunoglobulin M (IgM) antibodies demonstrated in CSF by antibody-capture enzyme
immunoassay (EIA); or
• Virus-specific IgM antibodies demonstrated in serum by antibody-capture EIA and confirmed by
demonstration of virus-specific serum immunoglobulin G (IgG) antibodies in the same or a later specimen by another serologic assay (e.g., neutralization or hemagglutination inhibition).