Division EENT-CONJ: Conjunctivitis

Conjunctivitis must meet at least one of the following criteria:

• Patient has pathogens cultured from purulent exudate obtained from the conjunctiva or contiguous tissues, such as eyelid, cornea, meibomian glands, or lacrimal glands

• Patient has pain or redness of conjunctiva or around eye

  AND at least 1 of the following:

  • WBCs and organisms seen on Gram's stain of exudates

  • purulent exudates

  • positive antigen test (for example, ELISA or IF for Chlamydia trachomatis, herpes simplex virus, adenovirus) on exudate or conjunctival scraping

  • multinucleated giant cells seen on microscopic examination of conjunctival exudate or scrapings

  • positive viral culture

  • diagnostic single antibody titre (IgM) or 4-fold increase in paired sera (IgG) for pathogen