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Saturday, October 13, 2012

CDC reports 185 cases of fungal meningitis in outbreak



CDC
CDC officials, including Dr. John Jernigan, center, discuss the ongoing outbreak of fungal meningitis in the U.S.
A few more people have been diagnosed with a rare form of fungal meningitis linked to contaminated back pain injections, federal health officials said Friday.
A case was reported in Texas, bringing the total number of patients diagnosed to 185, with 14 deaths, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported. Overall, patients have been diagnosed in 12 states.
The CDC and the Food and Drug Administration are working to confirm the source of the contamination, which is traced to three lots of steroid injections made at a Framingham, Massachusetts pharmacy. All of the drugs made at the pharmacy, the New England Compounding Center, have been recalled.
The CDC suggests more cases will turn up. The two molds that have been found in patients grow slowly and can cause very subtle symptoms, at least at first.   http://vitals.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/10/12/14397656-cdc-reports-185-cases-of-fungal-meningitis-in-outbreak?lite