**2. Epidemiology**

The incidence of meningitis in newborn period is so high that is incomparable to any other period in human life. Accurate determinations of incidence may not be possible due to lack of reporting by healthcare personnel and difficulties encountered by patients in access to healthcare institutions in economically underdeveloped countries. Nevertheless, it is estimated that 40,000–900,000 new cases of neonatal meningitis occur annually in these countries [1]. The incidence of neonatal meningitis, which is thought to be roughly one in 1000 live births, was reported to be 0.8–6.1 in 1000 live births in an article in which the results of 32 studies, carried out after 1990, have been reviewed [2].

A great progress has been made in this field of infectious diseases, at least in economically developed countries, with the decline of mortality rate from 50% of the past 40 years to that of 10–15% of today; however, almost no change has occurred in neonatal meningitis in terms of mortality in economically developing countries and morbidity worldwide [3]. The case fatality rate varies between 13 and 59% with respect to country of origin. Neurological sequelae, primarily hearing loss, continue to be an important problem with rates of 20–58% in the neonates who manage to survive this relentless disease [1, 4].

Turkey, once an economically developing country, where meningitis constitutes less than 1% of the reported causes of infant mortality, sets a good example of how natural health indices are affected favorably by slight increases in national income. According to the World Bank data, as of 2015, neonatal mortality rate in Turkey is seven per 1000 live births [an 80% decline from the rate (33) in 1990] [5, 6]. Yapıcıoğlu and colleagues reported the meningitis incidence as 1.4% among healthcare-associated infections in their university hospital's neonatal unit in Turkey [7].
