Neonatal herpes infection: case report and discussion

Abstract

Neonatal herpes simplex virus (HSV) infections are often life-threatening. Although sometimes difficult to diagnose, most infections can be treatable when found early. Infection with HSV should be kept high on the differential diagnosis of a febrile newborn younger than 1 month old, and treatment should be strongly considered for infants with certain risk factors, even before definitive culture or polymerase chain reaction results are available. The case presented here exemplifies the benefits of maintaining a high suspicion of and empirically treating for HSV in a 10-day-old febrile infant.