Community Corner

No Meningitis Cases in Connecticut Related to Tainted Drug

The nationwide outbreak of fungal meningitis resulting from a batch of a tainted steroid medication has caused five deaths.

 

The state has determined that none of the Connecticut patients who got  injections of a recalled medication linked to a multi-state outbreak of fungal meningitis have the disease.

Officials with the state’s Department of Public Health said they are working with the only medical practice in Connecticut that received shipments of the tainted medication, Interventional Spine & Sports Medicine, PC in Middlebury, and that the 39 patients there who were injected with it are being monitored. So far, none of them show signs of the illness.

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The facility is one of approximately 75 in 23 states that received the recalled medication. Click here for a detailed listing from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Fungal meningitis is not contagious but can be fatal. Several people have fallen ill with the disease since being injected with the tainted epidural steroid prepared by a New England facility and seven have died, the CDC reports. Some have also suffered strokes that are believed to have been caused by the medication.

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