searching the human herpes 6, 7 (pcr) in csf of children admitted in pediatric ward of rasoul hospital, tehran, iran

background and objectives: meningoencephalitis in iranian children is frequent, but encephalitis is rare .the frequency of hhv-6 and hhv-7 in central nervous system diseases of our children is unclear. the aim of this study was searching the dna-s of hhv-6 & hhv-7 in csf samples of children with meningoencephalitis  materials and methods: a cross sectional study (2007-2009) was done in pediatric ward in rasoul hospital, tehran iran. totally, 150 csf samples obtained from children (1-180 months) with meningoencephalitis. conventional and bactec ped plus medium, latex agglutination tests were used for ruling out the bacterial causes. we searched the dna-s of hhv-6 & hhv-6 quantitatively by real time - pcr in 150 csf samples obtained from children with meningoencephalitis. results: 60.7 % of  cases were male. fever was reported (>38.5) in 74%; irritability in 70%; convulsion was seen in 53% of cases. herpes virus was detected in 12% (18/150) of cases. both hhv-6 & hhv-7 were found in 6% of all cases. hhv-6 dna was detected in 4.7% (6) and hhv-7 dna was detected in 2 cases (1.4%) without any correlation to age, sex and clinical signs. hhv-6 was slightly more frequent than hhv-7. conclusion: our data indicate that herpes viruses are not uncommon causes in children with meningoencephalitis. the incidence was lower than other references.