Bilateral facial palsy in a young patient after meningococcal meningitis, associated to herpetic infection.

Dra. Edna Quintas – Serviço de Doenças Infecciosas / Hospital de São João Al. Prof. Hernâni Monteiro 4200-319 Porto Portugal. E-mail: edna19d@ hotmail.com Bilateral facial palsy is a rare clinical entity, which is often a special finding of a systemic disease, occurring in 0.3% to 2.0% of facial palsy cases. Many of them are potentially life-threatening, and therefore the condition requires urgent medical intervention. Bacterial meningitis, Lyme Disease, (Bannwarth syndrome), syphilis, infectious mononucleosis, Guillan Barré syndrome, leukemia, sarcoidosis, Mobius syndrome are the most common cause of bilateral facial paralysis. In this paper, we present a case of a previously healthy in young woman, who was hospitalized with symptoms of meningitis associated with herpetic infection.