Category Archives: Infectious Diseases

Testing for COVID-19 Infection

Accurate testing for SARS-CoV-2 infection, by which we mean testing with few false positives as well as few false negatives, is important not only for clinical management of individual cases but for epidemiological case tracing, limiting spread of infection and … Continue reading

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Distinguishing Encephalitis from Encephalopathy

Encephalitis may be defined as infection or inflammation of the brain substance, resulting typically in disturbed sensorium and perhaps seizures or focal neurological deficits and sometimes pyrexia. Encephalopathy in the other hand represents disturbed sensorium not due to an infective … Continue reading

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Coronavirus

Coronavirus is obviously not a neurological disease, apart from an isolated case report of encephalitis associated with the condition, which is to be expected very rarely in association with viral infections, but because it is so topical this paper Clinical … Continue reading

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Varicella Zoster is the Cause of Giant Cell Arteritis

Background Giant cell arteritis is an inflammatory condition of certain blood vessels that presents in the elderly. Those vessels affected include the: temporal artery resulting in headache and scalp tenderness over the inflamed artery, ciliary artery resulting in ischaemic optic … Continue reading

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Acute Flaccid Myelitis and Enterovirus D68

Background Enteroviruses, which may cause gastroenteritis or upper respiratory tract infections, are well-known to have neurotropism – a predilection in a proportion of individuals to spread to certain types of neurones, thereby resulting in characteristic neurological syndromes that occur after … Continue reading

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