Acute retinal necrosis following herpes simplex encephalitis.

A 14 year old male presented with redness and watering of his right eye of a week’s duration. He had been on local steroids and mydriatics for 3 days. He gave a history of herpes encephalitis, with post viral demyelination, cystitis and septicaemia 5 years back. At that time he had presented with headache, fever, vomiting, slurring of speech, drooling of saliva and inability to feed. Though blood and cerebrospinal fluid titres of antibodies to herpes simplex virus were negative, he was diagnosed to have herpes encephalitis on the basis of CT scan and MRI findings which showed diffuse brain oedema. He responded well to antiviral therapy and had been asymptomatic since then.