United States: Seventeen children have died from suspected contamination of IV feeding bags, with 16 of the victims being premature or underweight babies and one a 14-year-old. Authorities confirmed four additional deaths on Tuesday. The children, being treated in hospitals, were receiving nutrition through the contaminated feeding bags, which may have caused the deaths.
Kershenobich said he did not think there would be any other deaths resulting from the swine flu but pointed out the authorities had “identified other suspected cases with a similar profile in Mexico State, which are currently being studied.”
As reported by the HealthDay, three more were identified as happening in the other state, Michoacan, and one in the other zone of Guanajuato. The same bacteria and exactly the same IV bags were confirmed in all the deaths, as per authorities.
Earlier, the federal Public Health Department asked doctors all over the country to stop using IV nutrition bags manufactured by Products Hospitalities S.A de C.V., but the origin of the infections remain undisclosed.
Attempts to reach the company by telephone through the numbers provided and emails seeking comments were exercised.
A Klebsiella oxytocic, a multidrug resistant bacterium, and Enterobacter cloacae, both bacteria that caused blood infection in the babies, was also suspected to be behind the outbreak.
Shaken for years by cutbacks and a lack of funding, Mexico’s fragile system of public health care took another public pounding. Last month, the director of the country’s flagship national cardiology institute said the hospital lacked money to purchase crucial stocks, saying it was a critical situation.
The director of the Candelaria Hospital Dr. Jorge Gaspar penned a memo alluding to that effect stating that budget cuts which the government has been implementing have impacted on the purchase of supplies essential for the operation of the hospital.
In a public letter the next day he explained that the initial letter was written for internal consumption and wanted to assure the public “we are focusing on resolving the issue.”
For several years, Mexico has suffered from shocking cases of contaminated medical supplies.
In early 2023 reported meningitis outbreak linked to this hospital was attributable to an anesthesiologist, who was arrested: 35 patients died, 79 more got infected.
The doctor, whose name was withheld, apparently transported his own morphine from one private clinic to another and left behind a fungal contagion that infested the medication at the first clinic, investigators said.
