Introduction:

Chikungunya infection present clinically with fever and skin involvement. Neurological manifestations include encephalopathies, mainly encephalitis and meningoencephalitis; peripheral involvement such as myelitis, Guillain Barré Syndrome; or a combination of these such as encephaloneuromyelopathy.

Objective:

To describe the frequency and neurological manifestations associated with Chikungunya virus infection during the January-March 2023 time period in a pediatric population.

Materials and Methods:

This was a descriptive, retrospective and cross-sectional study of a case series. Minors under 18 years of age were admitted with neurological manifestations and positive RT-PCR results for Chikungunya virus who presented to a Public Hospital in January-March 2023. The variables were: demographics, reason for hospitalization, symptoms, neurological diagnoses, cerebrospinal fluid study, electroencephalogram, imaging studies, treatment, admission to the Intensive Care Unit, organic dysfunction and mortality. Data were analyzed in SPSS using descriptive statistics. The protocol was approved by the Ethics Committee.

Results:

24 patients were admitted, aged 10.0 ±16 months. 58.7% were male. As a neurological symptom, 54.1% had a seizure. Among the neurological diagnoses, 83.3% were encephalitis. Among the patients diagnosed with encephalitis, 75% were younger than 3 months, 50% had pathological cerebrospinal fluid, 45% underwent electroencephalography, and 50% received immunoglobulins. 50% were admitted to the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit. 60% presented organic dysfunction. Mortality was 4.2%.

Conclusions:

The most frequent neurological diagnosis was encephalitis, it predominated in infants under 3 months. The neurological symptoms were: seizures and irritability. More than half presented organic dysfunction, one patient expired.

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