Blog #9 Meningitis Outbreak Update 10/26/12

With the recent Meningitis outbreak still being studied and doctors and scientists researching new ways to treat the outbreak, the New York Times has given us an update. Thus far, 317 people have been infected out of the 14,000 injected, and 24 have died. Doctors have stated that the more recent a patient was injected, the higher their risk of infection. As time goes by and the patient who has had an injection does not have any symptoms or come down with the disease, the more and more their chances of getting meningitis goes down. The risk of getting the disease however is still highly unlikely. Doctors advise against using any anti-fungal drugs as preventative measures. These drugs can result in terrible side effects. Doctors’ advice for those people who have been injected is to do nothing unless the symptoms of headaches, sensitivity to light, dizziness, stiff neck, and fever present themselves. If these symptoms do occur, the first step doctors would take is a spinal tap to check the count of white blood cells. Advisement against preventative measure before symptoms occur such as the spinal tap is very serious. Spinal taps can possibly advance the disease by sending fungus already in the patient directly into the spinal fluid via the needle, advancing the spread of meningitis.

This outbreak all started with spinal patients receiving injections into their spinet that contained a steroid to help them recover. When word of the meningitis outbreak from this injection got out, the injections were first recalled on September 26th 2012. This horrible realization that such a harmful disease broke out because of something else that was intended to help spinal patients is upsetting. This outbreak was unexpected by was caught very quickly thanks to our advanced medical and scientific expertise. The United States has been able to very efficiently warn the country of this outbreak and send a plan of attack out immediately. Even though this country does not encounter this sort of devastation often, we are always ready. Other countries are not so fortunate however. Some places are just trying to provide clean water for its citizen let alone worry about a disease outbreak that occurred in result of advanced spinal treatments.

 http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/24/recent-spinal-shots-may-pose-greatest-meningitis-risk/?ref=health