Health officials monitoring local connection to meningitis outbreak

Twenty five people have died and hundreds more have contracted fungal meningitis from contaminated steroid injections. As KJZZ's Nadine Arroyo Rodriguez reports, two Arizona residents are linked to the outbreak.

The names of the two people in Arizona who received the tainted steroid have not been released. They received the pain shot while in other states. The Cronkite News Service reports that federal and local health department officials are aware of who they are and they're being monitored.

More than 300 people received the potentially contaminated steroid manufactured by New England Compounding Center in Massachusetts. The Food and Drug Administration is investigating how the fungus associated with meningitis got into products that should have been sterile.

Arizona Department of Health Director Will Humble told the Cronkite News Service the two local people, so far, haven't had any of the meningitis symptoms. He also said the Center for Disease Control has tracked down every single person who received an injection. 


Pledge Now
Give Monthly
Facebook logo
Twitter logo

Please read our Contributor Confidentiality Policy and the KJZZ Ethics and Practices guidelines. KJZZ supports Equal Employment Opportunities and works against discrimination in employment. For more information, please see KJZZ's Employment and EEO Information page.
For questions or comments about this website, please contact the KJZZ webmaster. For general comments or questions see the Contact KJZZ page for a listing of contacts by topic. Please note: Station policy mandates that listeners who win on-air giveaways on this station are not eligible to win again for 30 days.
Email regarding NPR's coverage, ethics, and funding can be sent to the NPR Ombudsman, who maintains an informative web page. For comments or concerns regarding NPR programs, listeners with a general inquiry may send an email to nprhelp@npr.org

KJZZ is a service of Rio Salado College, and Maricopa Community Colleges.
Copyright© 2013 KJZZ/Rio Salado College/MCCCD