3 Developed Meningitis From Bad Drug

RALEIGH, N.C.- An elderly woman died and two others were sickened with meningitis after being injected with a contaminated painkiller at separate health clinics, state health officials said.

The three patients received spinal injections of the drug methylprednisolone - a steroid used to treat joint pain - between April and July, and later contracted meningitis, the state Department of Health and Human Services said.

A 77-year-old woman died in August after being transferred to a hospital when she became ill. Her name was not released.

Two others were treated for fungal meningitis; no other cases have been detected.

"The first thing I needed to do was make sure it wasn't a galloping problem," state epidemiologist Dr. Jeffrey Engel said Tuesday. "We can say it's not widespread."

Engel said 870 people in North Carolina received the drug, which was contaminated with Wangiella dermatitidis, a common soil mold but an uncommon cause of meningitis.

State health officials and investigators from the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are trying to determine how the contamination occurred.

"As it is now, we just don't know how this happened," Engel said.

The clinics where the drug was disseminated are FirstHealth Moore Regional Hospital Pain Clinic in Pinehurst, Wayne Memorial Hospital in Goldsboro and Johnston Pain Management in Jacksonville, officials said.

Vials of the drug were distributed by South Carolina Urgent Care Pharmacy in Spartanburg, S.C. Company founder and pharmacist Ray Burns said tests of returned vials of the drug showed no contamination.

"We are committed to doing everything within our means to help in the discovery of what went wrong and how it can be prevented in the future," Burns said in a statement.

The drug was shipped to clinics in four other states: Virginia, Connecticut, South Carolina and Massachusetts. North Carolina received 95 percent - or about 800 vials - of the contaminated batch, Engel said.

No other states had reported problems with the drug, which was recalled by the supplier Sept. 17 and is no longer being distributed. Health officials in Massachusetts said the entire supply was sent back before it was used, Engel said.

Meningitis is an infection of the lining of the brain and spinal cord. Symptoms include severe headache, fever, stiff neck, vomiting and worsening back pain.

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