Elevated CSF levels of IL-6 have been well described in studies of community-acquired bacterial meningitis (Prasad et al., 2014; García-Hernández et al., 2016; Srinivasan et al., 2016; Lepennetier et al., 2019; Liba et al., 2019), but not in all (Asano et al., 2010), and IL-6 is also raised in encephalitis (Morichi et al., 2018). The gene discussed is IL6; the disease is encephalitis.