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129 Minnesota clinics received drugs from pharmacy

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Oct 17, 2012 at 7:23 am

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) - The Minnesota Department of Health says 129 clinics in Minnesota received injectable drugs from a pharmacy linked to a meningitis outbreak.

The health department is contacting those clinics to make sure they are contacting their patients who were given the drugs.

On Monday, U.S. health officials said two more drugs from the New England Compounding Center of Framingham, Mass., are now being investigated.

Previously, health officials were focusing on contacting and evaluating those patients who received injections of a steroid suspected of being contaminated. In Minnesota, that amounted to about 985 patients who received spinal injections
at Twin Cities pain clinics. Almost all of those patients have been contacted.

The number of confirmed fungal meningitis cases in Minnesota linked to tainted steroids remains at five.