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Arch Dermatol. 1991;127(5):622-623.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

Although Neisseria meningitidis is commonly isolated in clinical laboratories, laboratory-acquired infection is rare.¹ This report describes two fatal cases of meningococcal infection in laboratory workers; both of these cases probably were laboratory acquired.

Case 1.

On March 8, 1988, a clinical laboratory bacteriologist in California became ill with influenza-like symptoms and nausea. During the next 24 hours, she developed fever, myalgias, arthralgias, diarrhea, skin lesions, and confusion. Her husband informed ambulance personnel that she had had a mishap in the laboratory approximately 1 week earlier with a type of organism that causes meningitis.

When hospitalized at 10 p.m. on March 9, she was hypotensive with numerous petechial and purpuric lesions on her face, neck, trunk, and extremities; she died 6 hours later. The final autopsy diagnosis was "clinical acute intractable shock, consistent with acute meningococcemia." Blood cultures and cerebrospinal fluid studies were negative. Serum was positive by a bivalent . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

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