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Subscribe to RSSA dozen people have been sickened and two have died after an outbreak of fungal meningitis tied to injections given at outpatient surgical centers in Tennessee and North Carolina, health officials said.
At least 737 people who received lumbar epidural steroid injections between July 30 and Sept. 20 have been notified of the cluster of rare aspergillus meningitis infections, which attack the central nervous system, said Curtis Allen, a spokesman for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Aspergillus is a mold present in the environment, and the meningitis is not related to the more common bacterial or viral types of meningitis.
“The main thing is that it’s not transmissible person-to-person,” said Allen.
Federal, state and local health officials are investigating the source of the outbreak. Eleven of the victims received injections at the Saint Thomas Outpatient Neurosurgery Center in Nashville. Another patient received an injection at an unidentified clinic in North Carolina. The Tennessee clinic was closed Sept. 20 and has been shuttered until further notice, officials said.
The patients were older people, between the ages of 40 and 80, who were receiving the steroid injections as treatment for musculoskeletal disorders, said Woody McMillin, spokesman for the Tennessee Department of Health.
Neither federal nor state health officials would identify the brand of epidural steroids given to the patients nor the manufacturer of the drugs. Asked whether the drugs themselves could have been contaminated, McMillin said that’s one possibility.
“Right now, we’re not taking anything off the table,” he said.
Erica Jefferson, a spokeswoman for the federal Food and Drug Administration, said that it’s too soon to speculate about that because the investigation is still “evolving.”
Meningitis caused by aspergillus is very rare, according to the Journal of Microbiology. Symptoms often include a fever and headache that might be present for weeks before a diagnosis is made.
Tennessee officials have set up a hotline to answer questions about meningitis: 1-800-222-1222.
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Leave a Comment:
Dirty people die from dirty diseases! Those red states will denie anything even when face with death!
WE ALL DESERVE BETTER!
Get a life. Better yet, forfeit the one you've got... someone else could probably make better use of it.
So what of people who get the disease but don't die. Are they superhuman?
Name the drug manufacturer.
I agree. Why are they being protected?
How about Name the NC Clinic. Hate to seem self-serving here, but I had lumbar steroid injections August 1 here in Charlotte.
Been there done that with the spinal injections, I ended up with spinal headaches for two months following the injection, being told then the only cure was to lie flat on my back to avoid the migraine headaches. I will never do it again. The cure for chronic pain was simple, after much research, I tried something new on my own...I went gluten free and low fodmap (low sugar loads) Pain is a distant memory now, as well as my disability. Symptom treating will never help, it is only through avoidance of common food triggers (highly processed foods) where we will find the cure to nearly all disease. Research fructose malabsorbtion, chronic malabsorbtion and gluten intolerences. Will power and label reading is the only answer for me and it works!
Your problem has nothing to do with these patients who contracted FUNGAL meningitis, nor did you have meningitis at all - just a cerebral spinal fluid leak after the injections. Your symptoms are usually treated with a blood patch and fluids. So your dietary nonsense is unrelated to this story.
You examined this patient? No. You made an internet diagnosis and then attributed her recovery, not from what she said, but a treatment you can't confirm she had?
Wow! Why are you so angry that she recovered? Why the need to feel superior and intellectually right?
goody for those who died. At least they had the sense to think outside the box and figure it out, but it probably took the two deaths to take the other complaints seriously. Reactive.
Pharmaceutical and medical complications, mistakes by and dealing with bottom-of-the-barrel personnel are scary, unacceptable. It should be required that graduates be in the top 5-percent to enter this field.
On one side of the coin...."The main thing is that its not transmissible from person to person."
On the other side...."Right now, we’re not taking anything off the table"
Shouldn't that include communicability?
I would also like to know the name of the manufacturer because I had a spinal injection done in July and have had severe headaches, redness, dizziness with balance issues, nausea, and i feel like my skin is boiling hot most of the time... Kind of like permanent hot flashes for those of you who can relate... I have had no help from the doctors who performed this injection, when I called to report it they told me it was not from the injection that something else must have happened... I had my injection in Louisiana