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Brace for bird flu in the U.S.

Sat, 20 Apr 2013 13:00:00 +0000

Brace for bird flu in the United States, authorities told health-care workers on Thursday, as China announced 92 confirmed cases of the new, mysterious H7N9 strain of the illness.

Hospitals and clinics should be vigilant for people exhibiting flu-like symptoms who have traveled from China, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

The CDC also issued on Thursday “interim guidance” regarding the use of antiviral drugs in treating the disease.

There is no vaccine available for this strain of H7N9 avian flu, the CDC said, although it cautioned that the measures it is taking are routine.

While there is little evidence the disease is easily transmitted from poultry to humans, experts are watching the new strain closely because of its sudden arrival.

Because the strain is considered “novel,” or non-human, the threat of pandemic remains high should the disease mutate and spread between people.

Before meningitis outbreak, pharmacy avoided sanctions

Tue, 23 Oct 2012 16:50:00 +0000

BOSTON (AP) — New state documents detail problems found in 2006 by an outside firm hired to do an assessment at the company at the center of a deadly meningitis outbreak.

The state documents, obtained by The Associated Press under a public records request, say investigators in 2006 found inadequate contamination control and no written standard operating procedures for using equipment, among other problems, at the New England Compounding Center. The problems were corrected that year, and a state inspection in May 2011 as the company prepared to update its facilities found no such issues.

The outbreak of meningitis, an inflammation of the lining of the brain and spinal cord, has sickened nearly 300 people, including 23 who died, in more than a dozen states. Each victim had received a steroid shot, mostly for back pain. Federal health officials matched the shots produced by the company to the outbreak after finding a deadly fungus in more than 50 unopened vials there but have not said how the shots were contaminated.

A congressional committee on Monday sought a decade's worth of records from the company.

Meningitis death toll rises

Thu, 18 Oct 2012 11:58:00 +0000

NEW YORK — Four more people have died in the national meningitis outbreak, bringing the death toll to 19, health officials said Wednesday.

The deaths are among the 247 people in 15 states sickened in the outbreak. They all received shots of an apparently contaminated steroid medication made by a Massachusetts specialty pharmacy.

Most of the patients contracted a rare fungal form of meningitis, after getting the shots for back pain over the past few months. Two developed infections from joint injections.

Of the latest deaths, two were in Tennessee and one each was reported in Florida and in Virginia, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Wednesday. That brings deaths to eight in Tennessee; three in Florida and Michigan, two in Indiana and Virginia, and one in Maryland.

Test results so far show infections with three kinds of fungus, most of them a form of black mold, the CDC said. Of 42 patients, 40 were infected with Exserohilum fungus. The others were infected with Aspergillus or Cladosporium. All are treated with the same anti-fungal medications.

Three lots of the suspect steroid were recalled last month by the New England Compounding Center of Framingham, Mass. All the illnesses have been traced to one of those lots.