Meningitis Outbreak Grows With No End In Sight

The fungal meningitis outbreak in the United States has taken a twist that didn’t altogether surprise health experts, but rather confirmed their fears. Additional medications from the New England Compounding Center, NECC, have been linked by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to new cases of the infectious illness.

Different Drugs, Same Fungal Meningitis Infections

On Monday, the FDA made a preliminary report that two transplant patients who had received an injectable heart drug medication and a person in Pennsylvania who had received an injection for pain other than the methylprednisolone acetate originally linked to the infections also had the rare fungal meningitis.

Today, the FDA issued a new statement based on ongoing investigations into the infections linked to other NECC-made drugs that reveals only one of the transplant patients has the fungal infection and health experts are looking into any other possible ways that person may have contracted the causative fungus.

Health Care Providers to Contact Patients Who Received Any NECC Injectable Medications

Health care providers had already been advised by the FDA to stop using any medications distributed by NECC; on Monday the federal agency gave notice to health care practitioners, “out of an abundance of caution,” to contact patients who had received any injectable drug made by NECC after May 21. Providers will be contacting those who received joint injections, certain eye injections and medications associated with eye surgery and others.

Read more here at: http://news.yahoo.com/meningitis-outbreak-grows-no-end-sight-185500757.html