Meningitis Outbreak Continues to Fright US
Meningitis Outbreak Continues to Fright US
After weeks of investigations, another two drugs from a special pharmacy connected to the meningitis outbreak are now being examined, U.S. health officials confirmed, as they insisted doctors to contact patients who got any kind of injection from the company.
When a rare fungal form of meningitis was linked to its steroid shots used mostly for back pain that were produced by New England Compounding Center of Framingham, Mass since last month, the company has been thrown mounts of scrutiny and investigations.
Infections on three people who got different drugs made by the company are already reported by the Food and Drug Administration. One is a possible meningitis illness in a patient who got a spine injection of another type of steroid. The agency also learned of two heart transplant patients who got fungal infections after being given a third company product during surgery.
The illnesses are under investigation, and it's very possible that the two heart patients were infected by another source, FDA officials cautioned. They did not say whether the meningitis case involved a fungal infection or where the three patients lived.
As of Monday, the current outbreak has sickened 214 people, including 15 who have died, in 15 states. The steroid was recalled last month, and the company later shut down operations and recalled all the medicines it makes.
"As we have said, we will respect those public agencies' processes for investigations and will not comment while they are under way," the statement said.
Nearly all the 214 illnesses in the outbreak are fungal meningitis; two people had joint infections.
Symptoms of meningitis include severe headache, nausea, dizziness and fever. The CDC said many of the cases have been mild, and some people had strokes.
Posted by
George Daniels
on Thursday October 18 2012, 3:17 AM EST.
Ref: Yahoo.
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