A cluster of meningitis cases has been linked to the recent mouse plague in eastern Australia, including a pregnant woman who miscarried.

Doctors have confirmed eight cases of lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus (LCMV) infection in south-east Queensland in the last 18 months, all of which followed “extensive mouse contact” at the height of the 2020-21 mouse plague.

They warn the virus is likely now endemic across a wide area and that doctors confronted with cases of aseptic meningitis without any underlying cause should consider it as a possibility.  

Although most patients would have a relatively uneventful febrile illness, immunocompromised people and pregnant women were at risk of serious complications, said the doctors, from the Princess Alexandra Hospital in Brisbane.