Re: US - 39 dead, 620 infected with fungal meningitis in 19 states
Re: US - 39 dead, 620 infected with fungal meningitis in 19 states
Reuter's has done an interesting summary article on how the situation is being handled in Michigan. The entire article is worth a read but here are some interesting tidbits:
Fungal meningitis: Michigan hospital leads fight against deadly outbreak
"...St Joseph Mercy - a 537-bed Catholic hospital located in Ypsilanti, on the doorstep of the University of Michigan - has treated 169 of the state's 223 cases of infections that can cause meningitis, including 7 people who died.
At one point it was so overrun that 87 of its 537 beds... were occupied by patients with fungal meningitis and related infections.
...
CDC experts initially feared death rates in the 40 to 50 percent range; instead, only about 6 percent of those infected have died, and the CDC credits the creative and dogged efforts of state and local health officials for keeping the death rates so low.
...Dr Anurag Malani, an infectious disease specialist... said the challenge with the outbreak was that there was no medical literature to fall back on.
"No one has ever seen anything of this magnitude related to fungal infections, ever," he said.
Chiller said U.S. doctors had never treated meningitis caused by Exserohilum rostratum, the environmental mold causing most of the infections.
"It's just a rare, rare cause of infection." Seeing that mold in the meninges - membranes covering the brain and spinal cord - is "completely new."
...It morphed into something bigger when some of its 53 patients with meningitis started returning with infections near the site in their back or neck where the contaminated drug was injected.
..."
When it became obvious that the number of patients would be a much higher percentage than anticipated by the CDC, we expanded our clinic and started enlisting the help of several other hospitals," Vandenberg said.
...
The decision to screen all patients in the hospital database who might have received tainted injections was not taken at the recommendation of the CDC.
...Excluding patients who had already been screened and those who had injections in areas other than the spine, the hospital targeted about 500 patients for MRI scans.
..."We did over 400 MRIs in about a 4-week period," Vandenberg said. The hospital screened so many patients, in fact, that the state of Michigan sent in an emergency mobile MRI unit to help.
...So far,
about 20 percent of the MRIs have shown up as abnormal, meaning that patients have to come back for surgery and treatment.
...Vandenberg nevertheless cautions that the outbreak is still far from over.
"Every single day of this screening program, we're finding one or two cases that are abnormal and need to be admitted," he said.
..."
Unfortunately, with fungi, the incubation periods are so long and they can remain indolent. I'm definitely concerned that we're going to continue to see more cases.""
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