Seven dead as meningitis outbreak grows

October 7, 2012 – HEALTH – The death toll from an outbreak of fungal meningitis linked to contaminated steroid injections has risen to seven, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Saturday. The total number of cases has also grown to 64 people in nine states, the CDC said. That is 17 more cases and two more states than the day before. Patients contracted the deadly meningitis after being injected in their spine with a preservative-free steroid called methylprednisolone acetate that was contaminated by a fungus. The steroid is used to treat pain and inflammation. Health officials say 76 medical facilities in 23 states received the contaminated products, which were manufactured by New England Compounding Center in Framingham, Massachusetts. NECC voluntarily recalled three lots of the injectible steroid last week. As a precaution, the Food and Drug Administration is asking doctors, clinics, and consumers to stop using any products made by NECC. The FDA is investigating the scope and cause of the outbreak. The CDC raised the death toll Saturday after two people died in Michigan. Other deaths have been reported in Maryland, Tennessee, and Virginia. Tennessee is reporting the most number of overall cases — 29 — which includes three deaths, according to the CDC. Confirmed cases have also been found in Florida, Indiana, Minnesota, North Carolina and Ohio. The other states that received the contaminated products from NECC are California, Connecticut, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Nevada, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas and West Virginia. Nearly 10% of drugs administered in the United States come from compound pharmacies, according to a 2003 Government Accountability Office report. Drugs manufactured by compound pharmacies do not have to go through FDA-mandated pre-market approval. Instead, oversight and licensing of these pharmacies comes from state health pharmacy boards. -CNN