Twenty-three people, nine of whom live in the United States and 14 in Mexico, were infected in an outbreak of meningitis that was detected this month in the border city of Matamoros, the Mexican government announced Thursday.
The Ministry of Health said in a statement that of the fourteen cases residing in Mexico, four are suspected and present symptoms; five presented alterations in the cerebrospinal fluid results, and another five had the presence of the fungus fusarium solani confirmed, similar to that detected in other patients who were infected in an outbreak of meningitis that occurred last November in the northern state of Durango .
Regarding the nine cases identified in Texas, the Ministry of Health specified that eight have symptoms and their condition is stable, and another died. Similarly, US authorities are investigating another death possibly associated with meningitis.
The infections are associated with surgical procedures that were performed in the private centers Clínica K-3 and Hospital River Side Surgical Center in Matamoros, state of Tamaulipas, which were suspended since May 13 by the Federal Commission Against Sanitary Risks.
The Mexican health authorities identified 547 people who underwent a surgical or anesthetic procedure in the aforementioned health centers between January 1 and May 13, who are under medical monitoring to assess whether they present symptoms of the disease.
Earlier, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said during his morning conference that the outbreak of meningitis that arose in Matamoros was caused by “a drug used as anesthesia for plastic surgery that was contaminated.” Meningitis is an infectious disease that causes inflammation of the membranes that surround the brain and spinal cord.
The announcement comes a day after US authorities reported two deaths from possible meningitis and some 224 patients who could be at risk of the disease after undergoing surgeries between January and May 13 at the River Side Surgical Center and K-3 Clinic.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued an alert last week warning US residents to cancel their surgeries in Matamoros and noted that five people from Texas who had undergone operations there had developed possible cases of fungal meningitis. . One of them died. A second person who was a suspected case has also died.
The Secretary of Health of Tamaulipas, Joel Vicente Hernández Navarro, told local media last week that three patients infected with meningitis were confirmed with the fusarium solani fungus, the same one that was detected in the cases that were registered last year in Durango.
Hernández Navarro pointed out that 11 patients were being studied, of whom seven were from the United States and four from Mexico.
The new outbreak of meningitis occurs six months after a similar event that occurred in Durango where some thirty people died and some 76 were infected after undergoing surgeries in which a contaminated drug was used as anesthesia.
The Mexican health authorities reported that the meningitis outbreak was caused by the microscopic fungus Fusarium solani. Most of those infected were women undergoing obstetric procedures. All the patients received a type of anesthesia known as a spinal block.
Connect with the Voice of America! Subscribe to our channel Youtube and activate notifications, or follow us on social networks: Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
