Meningococcal Meningitis with a Benign Skin Rash

A skin eruption may be one of the early clues to meningococcal meningitis. We treated a boy with meningococcal disease accompanied by an exanthemlike eruption. Although the skin lesions in meningococcal meningitis are traditionally described as petechial, purpuric, or ecchymotic, the absence of these findings should not deter the physician from a clinical suspicion of this potentially fatal infection.