Fifteen more infections and one more death have been reported in a multistate fungal meningitis outbreak, according to federal health officials, and reports are starting to surface about serious complications in some patients.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that the number of outbreak infections linked to tainted steroid injections has climbed to 419, with the number of deaths rising to 30. The number of affected states remained at 19, the same as last week.
In addition to use for back pain, the contaminated steroid injections implicated in the outbreak were also used to treat joint problems, and the CDC has been tallying the number of peripheral joint infections, which has risen by one case to 10, according to the latest report.
All but one of the confirmed infections so far has involved a type of black mold called Exserohilum rostratum, which had not been known to cause meningitis before. The same type of mold was found in unopened vials of recalled methylprednisolone acetate injections produced by New England Compounding Center in Framingham, Mass.
Read more from the Center for Infectious Disease Research & Policy at the University of Minnesota.
