OBJECTIVE: This study examined the burden of hospitalization of children with 
viral meningitis in Department of Pediatric Infectious Diseases, Medical 
University of Bialystok from 2003 to 2005.
METHODS: Data were extracted from Children Teaching Hospital database. A 
hospitalization with viral meningitis was defined as any discharge with 
diagnoses of mumps meningitis (B26.1), enteroviral meningitis (A85.0), tick-born 
encephalitis (A84.1) and viral undifferentiated meningitis (A87.9) due to 
ICD-10. Outcome measures included number of hospitalizations in total and due to 
different etiology as well as their impact in the budget of the unit.
RESULTS: 316 hospitalizations with viral meningitis were identified. Of these 
246 (77.6%) were diagnosed with mumps etiology, 10 (3.2%) with enteroviral, 1 
(0.3%) with tick-born virus and 59 (18.7%) with unknown viral etiology. Most 
cases of viral meningitis were hospitalized in 2003--132 (41.8%). Of these 93.9% 
were diagnosed with mumps meningitis. In 2005, of 78 hospitalizations associated 
with viral meningitis 10 (12.8%) were confirmed and further 38 (48.7%) were 
suspected enteroviral meningitis. The percentages of costs associated with viral 
meningitis in 2004 and 2005 (26% and 18.8%) were high in comparison to 
percentage of hospitalizations with viral meningitis (10.7% and 7.3%, 
respectively).