Meningitis outbreak may widen in US
Source: Agencies |
October 6, 2012, Saturday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
THE potential scope of the US meningitis outbreak that has killed at least five people widened dramatically on Thursday as health officials warned that hundreds, perhaps thousands, of patients who got steroid back injections in 23 states could be at risk.
Clinics and medical centers rushed to contact patients who may have received the apparently fungus-contaminated shots. And the US Food and Drug Administration urged doctors not to use any products at all from the Massachusetts pharmacy that supplied the suspect steroid solution.
So far, 35 people in six states - Tennessee, Virginia, Maryland, Florida, North Carolina and Indiana - have contracted fungal meningitis. Five of them have died, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. All had received steroid shots for back pain, a common treatment.
Massachusetts health officials said the pharmacy involved, the New England Compounding Center of Framingham, Massachusetts, has recalled 17,676 single-dose vials of the steroid, preservative-free methylprednisolone acetate.
Clinics and medical centers rushed to contact patients who may have received the apparently fungus-contaminated shots. And the US Food and Drug Administration urged doctors not to use any products at all from the Massachusetts pharmacy that supplied the suspect steroid solution.
So far, 35 people in six states - Tennessee, Virginia, Maryland, Florida, North Carolina and Indiana - have contracted fungal meningitis. Five of them have died, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. All had received steroid shots for back pain, a common treatment.
Massachusetts health officials said the pharmacy involved, the New England Compounding Center of Framingham, Massachusetts, has recalled 17,676 single-dose vials of the steroid, preservative-free methylprednisolone acetate.
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