Tennessee fungal meningitis toll reaches 8

By The Associated Press

NASHVILLE (AP) — Two more people have died in Tennessee from a rare fungal meningitis linked to contaminated steroid injections.

According to the state Health Department, eight people in Tennessee have now died from the disease.

In total, 61 people in the state have been sickened either with meningitis or joint infections associated with the steroids. That is an increase of three from Tuesday.

The Tennessee Health Department said Wednesday that 74 health care facilities here have received shipments of those medications.

Health officials in Tennessee are currently identifying patients who might have received the newly suspect medicines and should begin to contact them early next week.

Nationally, the death toll is 19, health officials said Wednesday.

The deaths are among the 247 people in 15 states sickened in the outbreak. They all received shots of an apparently contaminated steroid medication made by a Massachusetts specialty pharmacy.

Most of the patients contracted a rare fungal form of meningitis, after getting the shots for back pain over the past few months. Two developed infections from joint injections.

Of the latest deaths, two were in Tennessee and one each was reported in Florida and in Virginia, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Wednesday.

Test results so far show infections with three kinds of fungus, most of them a form of black mold, the CDC said. Of 42 patients, 40 were infected with Exserohilum fungus. The others were infected with Aspergillus or Cladosporium. All are treated with the same anti-fungal medications.

Three lots of the suspect steroid were recalled last month by the New England Compounding Center of Framingham, Mass. All the illnesses have been traced to one of those lots.

Food and Drug Administration officials last week said they found fungus in 50 vials of the preservative-free steroid called methylprednisolone acetate. However, they have not said what kind of fungus they detected.

On Monday, FDA officials said they are investigating two more drugs made by New England Compounding — another steroid and a solution used during heart surgery. Initially, the FDA said two heart transplant patients who got the heart solution developed fungal infections but later said one case involved a solution made by another company. They also have cautioned there could be other explanations for the infections.