In September 2012 the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention received reports of patients being diagnosed with fungal meningitis. After investigation the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration were able to trace the outbreak to contaminated preservative free methylprednisolone acetate (MPA) epidural steroid injections that had been made at the New England Compound Center (NECC), in Framingham, Massachusetts. In total 753 cases were reported across 20 states, and 64 patients died. The majority of patients received spinal injections of the MPA that had been infected with the fungus Exserohilum rostratum, a common dermatiacious mold that is found in soil, plants and grasses and is rarely pathogenic in humans. (MMWR). This outbreak brought …show more content…
2012 that a patient who had received an epidural steroid injection of MPA at a surgery center had been diagnosed with meningitis caused by the fungus Asperigllius fumigatus. Within ten days, eight more patients in Tennessee and North Carolina had been diagnosed with fungal meningitis, all of which had also received epidural steroid injections within the same three lots of medication, that were produced at the New England Compounding Center (NECC) in Framingham, Massachusetts. These three lots affected about 17,500 vials of MPA that had been shipped to 75 different facilities in 23 different states. NECC chose to voluntarily recall all products produced at the facility on October 6th, 2012. Shortly after the recall the FDA announced that samples of three other preservative free injectable drugs, Betmethasone, Triamcinolone, and Caridplegia had tested positive for bacterial and fungal contamination. They tested positives for Bacilius species, Aspergillus tubingensis, Aspergillus fumigatus, Cladosporium species, and Penicillium species. There were no reports of patients developing meningitis from these medications, but there were some incidences of inflammation of the meningeses. Because of the wide spread distribution of the contaminated MPA the CDC estimated that almost 14,000 patients had been exposed to the contaminated injections, will some patients receiving multiple doses, increasing their chances of