A fifth person has died in a growing outbreak of a rare form of meningitis that has sickened more than two dozen people in five US states.
Dr. Robert Latham, chief of medicine at Saint Thomas Hospital in Nashville, Tennessee, said Thursday a patient died there late Wednesday or early Thursday.
Tennessee has had three deaths. Deaths have also been reported in Virginia and Maryland.
People in all the cases received steroid injections used mostly for back pain that have been traced back to a specialty pharmacy in Massachusetts. The pharmacy issued a recall last week and has shut down operations.
The type of meningitis is not contagious. Health officials believe that more new cases are almost certain to appear in the coming days.
The Meningitis Foundation of America (MFA) describes the most common fungal meningitis with the organism Cryptococcus neoformans, a yeast. MFA states most fungal meningitis from this yeast are found in immune compromised patients. This occurrence is out of the blue. I didn't see a listing of it anywhere with the WHO unless it is classified as 'unknown.'
All the reports and journal articles point to immune suppression as the culprit. In other words, a normal body's immune system can handle the yeasts and fungus to fend off any infection. But, these same articles and reports do not make mention of Aspergillus. It is the tiniest of fungus of all varieties and why it is used to develop filters for sterile rooms. The filters are suppose to stop anything, including this tiny fungus. Aspergillus is the standard.
