Minocycline for management of Japanese encephalitis: A case report.

Abstract

Japanese encephalitis virus infection manifests as acute encephalitis syndrome leading to significant neurological disability with estimated incidence around 85,000 cases per year and case fatality rate of 30%. Treatment remains largely conservative as there is no specific antiviral available till date. Clinical trials have failed to show the benefit of drugs studied, except minocycline which has some limited evidence. Preclinical studies and in silico analysis led to identification of various synthetic and natural compounds which could be potential therapies in the future. This article provides an overview of the potential therapeutic options for Japanese encephalitis available in the literature with a description of a case treated to have significant neurological recovery at a resource poor setting.