More drugs implicated in fungal meningitis outbreak

The FDA is urging doctors who administer any injectable product, drug used in eye surgery or cardiac solution, to contact their patients out of an abundance of caution. NBC's Lisa Myers reports.

By Maggie Fox, NBC News

Two more drugs have been implicated in the ongoing outbreak of fungal meningitis linked to contaminated pain injections, federal health officials said Monday.

Both come from the same pharmacy, New England Compounding Center, that distributed the steroids suspected of sickening at least 214 people and killing 15 of them, the Food and Drug Administration said in a statement.

One is a steroid called triamcinolone acetonide and another is a product used during heart surgery. While the FDA hasnt confirmed that the two products are to blame, its issued a warning.

A patient with possible meningitis potentially associated with epidural injection of an additional NECC product, triamcinolone acetonide, has been identified through active surveillance and reported to FDA, the agency said in a statement.

Triamcinolone acetonide is a type of steroid injectable product made by NECC. The cases of meningitis identified to date have been associated with methylprednisolone acetate, another similar steroid injectable product. Both can be injected into the spine. The FDA didn't specify what the triamcinolone was being used for in this case. Methylprednisolone was being used to treat pain.

Until now, just three lots of methylprednisolone made by NECC had been suspected but as many as 14,000 patients were treated with steroid from those three batches.

In addition, two transplant patients with Aspergillus fumigatus infection who were administered NECC cardioplegic solution during surgery have been reported, the FDA added. Cardioplegic solution is used to induce cardiac muscle paralysis during open heart surgery to prevent injury to the heart.

The agency said it is still investigating. FDA has not confirmed that these three infections were, in fact, caused by an NECC product, it said.

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More drugs implicated in fungal meningitis outbreak