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Abstract

Introduction

Cases of infections are being increasingly recognized in geographical regions that were traditionally regarded as non-endemic. Here, we describe a case of meningoencephalitis in an immunocompetent Filipino male diagnosed in Kuwait.

Case presentation:

A 34-year-old healthy Filipino male presented with a history of progressive generalized headache, nausea and repeated episodes of vomiting. The patient had continuously lived and worked in Kuwait for three consecutive years before developing the disease. The diagnosis of meningoencephalitis was established by demonstrating capsulated budding yeast cells in cerebrospinal fluid, isolating in culture and detecting cryptococcal polysaccharide antigen in serum and cerebrospinal fluid specimens. Molecular characterization of the isolate confirmed its identity as , genotype AFLP6/VGII. The isolate showed reduced susceptibility to fluconazole and was treated suboptimally until flucytosine became available.

Conclusions:

A case of meningoencephalitis in a healthy Filipino male, who apparently acquired the infection in his native country, is described. The infection remained dormant for several years before becoming clinically apparent. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report of meningitis diagnosed in Kuwait.

  • This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/).
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2015-06-01
2024-04-29
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