Six months after scandal, patients still developing fungal meningitis

http://vitals.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/03/07/17213640-six-months-after-fungal-meningitis-outbreak-patients-still-get-infections?lite

by JoNel Alecci
Mar. 7, 2013

Nearly six months after the start of a deadly fungal meningitis outbreak blamed on tainted pain shots, patients who originally tested clear are showing up sick, raising worries that the incubation period for illness may be longer than anyone thought.

Though the flood of patients has slowed dramatically, two or three people each week are still reporting illnesses caused by contaminated steroids in the outbreak that has killed 48 and sickened more than 700, officials with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

Among those new patients are people who received mold-tainted doses of the drug methylprednisolone, but who previously got MRIs or lumbar punctures that showed they were free of infection.

“If you had an MRI in October, I don’t know that you’re out of the woods,” said Dr. Anurag Malani, an infectious disease expert at St. Joseph Mercy Hospital in Ann Arbor, Mich., the state that has seen the most cases -- 253 -- in the outbreak.

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