4 Dead from Rare Meningitis, More Cases Expected

Posted at: 10/04/2012 9:45 AM | Updated at: 10/04/2012 5:23 PM

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - Health officials are expecting to find more cases of a rare and deadly form of meningitis that has sickened more than two dozen people in five states. Four have died.

All received steroid injections, mostly for back pain, a fairly typical treatment.

The type of meningitis involved is not contagious like the more common forms. This type is caused by a fungus often found in leaf mold and which health officials suspect may have been in the steroid.

Eighteen of the cases are in Tennessee, where a Nashville clinic received the largest shipment of the steroid. The drug was made by a specialty pharmacy in Massachusetts that issued a recall last week. Investigators, though, say they're still trying to confirm the source of the infection.

The steroid medication suspected in an outbreak of a rare kind of meningitis was shipped to 23 states, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The specialty pharmacy that made the steroid, New England Compounding Center of Framingham, Mass., recalled three lots of the drug last week and has shut down operations.

The states that received shipments of the recalled steroid:

California
Connecticut
Florida
Georgia
Idaho
Illinois
Indiana
Maryland
Michigan
Minnesota
Nevada
New Hampshire
New Jersey
New York
North Carolina
Ohio
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
South Carolina
Tennessee
Virginia
Texas
West Virginia

CDC: http://www.cdc.gov/meningitis/fungal.html

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4 Dead from Rare Meningitis, More Cases Expected

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