ATLANTA - The pharmacy that distributed a steroid linked to an outbreak of fungal meningitis has issued a voluntary recall of all of its products, calling the move a precautionary measure.
The New England Compounding Center announced the recall Saturday. The company said in a news release that the move was taken out of an abundance of caution because of the risk of contamination. It said there is no indication that any other products have been contaminated.
The Food and Drug Administration had previously told health professionals not to use any products distributed by the center. Health officials have been scrambling to notify anyone who may have been injected with it.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention posted updated figures to its website Sunday showing there are 91 confirmed cases of the rare form of fungal meningitis. The outbreak spans nine states and has killed at least seven people.
The states with reported cases are: Florida, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee and Virginia.
It is not yet known exactly how many people may have been affected, though it could affect hundreds or even thousands of people who received the steroid injections for back pain from July to September.
Meningitis is caused by the inflammation of protective membranes covering the brain and spinal cord. Fungal meningitis is not contagious as are its more common viral and bacterial counterparts.
Indiana has five cases of fungal meningitis linked to a tainted back pain medication.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention posted the latest count on its website Saturday afternoon. Amanda Turney, spokeswoman for the Indiana State Department of Health, later confirmed the five cases.
Phone messages left at the six Indiana health facilities that received batches of the steroid were not returned.
The Indiana clinics are in Elkhart, Evansville, Fort Wayne, South Bend, Terre Haute and Columbus. OSMC Surgery Center CEO Don Hammond said Friday that two of the Elkhart clinic's patients had been hospitalized with the rare illness.
As of Saturday, about 1,500 people in Indiana were known to have received spinal or joint injections of the drug, Turney said.
In updated figures on its website, the CDC said the national outbreak has spread to more than 60 people across nine states and left seven people dead. Minnesota and Ohio are the two latest states to report confirmed cases linked to the steroid.
Massachusetts health officials said the pharmacy involved, the New England Compounding Center of Framingham, Mass., has recalled three lots - a total of 17,676 single-dose vials - of methylprednisolone acetate.
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