[Virologic and serologic findings in an epidemic of abacterial meningitis of unknown origin (author's transl)].

In the summer of 1972 there occurred an epidemic of abacterial meningitis in Bayreuth and its surroundings. We received material of 52 ill children, aged 2 months to 14 years. A virus could be isolated in 10 (5 Coxsackie A4, 2 ECHO 6, 1 Coxsackie B 5 and twice enterovirus which would not be typed). Only in another 13 children could we make unequivocal diagnoses (7 Coxsackie A4, 2 Coxsackie B5, one each Coxsackie A 2, ECHO 3, Mumps, RRS-virus). With the other 29 patients a safe laboratory diagnosis could not be made, because there were either antibody titers against several virus from the same blood specimen (10) or nothing abnormal could be found (19). Therefore, since in a third of those examined no laboratory diagnostic basis for the cause of the epidemic could be found, we felt that we had not established the cause. The large number of positive findings we believe to be due to more or less "normal" epidemiologic processes in this child-population during the summer-fall period. The obvious limits of serologic diagnosis are discussed.