Deadly meningitis outbreak puts researchers in new territory

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/fungi-are-strange-and-dreaded-causes-of-human-disease/2012/10/20/ba8160fe-1aca-11e2-aa6f-3b636fecb829_story.html?hpid=z3


HARRISON MCCLARY/REUTERS - Samples of Cladosporium species, left, and Aspergillus fumigatus, two of the fungi diagnosed in the fungal meningitis outbreak sweeping the United States.

The outbreak of fungal meningitis linked to contaminated steroid injections represents a forced march into unexplored medical territory.

Most fungal infections occur on the skin and are easily treated. Inhaling fungus-contaminated dust sometimes causes pneumonia in healthy people. Fungal infections in the brain, however, are almost always confined to people whose immunity has been suppressed by AIDS, cancer, burns or organ transplantation.

What’s underway now — a new form of fungal meningitis in 281 otherwise healthy people — is an event without precedent.

To date, 23 people have died. New cases appear every day; the count went up by 13 on Saturday. In all, 14,000 people in 23 states received injections around the spine or a joint with the anti-inflammatory drug methylprednisolone acetate from three contaminated lots distributed by a Massachusetts company.