Two dead and 500 at risk of fungal brain infection after cosmetic ops at Mexico clinics

HEALTH authorities suspect that over 500 people have been exposed to a fungal brain infection that has already killed two Americans.

The victims travelled to clinics in Matamoros, Tamaulipas, Mexico, this year to receive cosmetic surgery, including liposuction.

These kind of procedures use epidural anaesthesia, which involves injecting anesthetic directly into the spine.

It appears that patients operated on in two specific Mexican clinics – River Side Surgical Center and Clinica K-3 – had contaminated unaesthetic injected into their spinal column, resulting in a suspected outbreak of fungal meningitis.

Meningitis is an infection of the protective membranes that surround the brain and spinal cord, causing a high temperature, headaches, a stiff neck and sensitivity to light.

It’s usually spread by a bacterial or viral infection and one in 10 cases can be fatal, according to the NHS.

The Mexican Ministry of Health shuttered the implicated clinics on May 13 and provided the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) with a list of 221 US patients who might be at risk for meningitis based on records of procedures at these clinics between January 1 and May 13, the US agency said.

Though previous reports only flagged the number of American citizens at risk, they weren’t the only ones to get procedures at River Side Surgical Center and Clinica K-3.

People from Mexico, Canada and Colombia have partaken as well. So far, the Mexican Ministry of Health has identified a total of 547 people at risk, based on a May 25 press release.

The large majority of US nationals affected reside in the state of Texas, CDC epidemiologist Dallas Smith shared in a recent webinar update on the suspected outbreak, but its investigation spanned 24 states in total.

As of May 26, the CDC is investigating 199 people who might have been exposed to the contaminated epidural anaesthesia, 12 patients who have symptoms suggesting an infection to their central nervous system, and 10 it has said are probable cases of fungal meningitis.

The agency was able to remove five people from the list of patients Mexican authorities provided.

Each of these 221 people had undergone surgical procedures at either the River Side Surgical Center or Clinica K-3 in Matamoros from January 1 through May 13, 2023, according to the CDC.

The vast majority – 205 – of American patients exposed to fungal meningitis were were women, and the remaining 16 were male.

On average, people visiting the two clinics were 35 years old, Dr Smith shared.

One the patients who succumbed to fungal meningitis was an organ donor, the epidemiologist added. He said the five recipients of the victim’s organs were all being monitored.

The CDC interviewed 10 women who visited one of the two Mexican clinics between January and March this year, and found that all of them had had liposuction, four had had boob jobs and three had received a Brazilian butt lift.

Dr Smith said the current outbreak had the capacity to reach the same high mortality rate as a similar fungal meningitis outbreak in Durango, Mexico, which started in November 2022.

It infected 80 people and killed 39 of those: “almost a 50 per cent mortality rate”, the infectious disease expert noted.

A whopping 1480 patients were exposed to contaminated epidural anaesthesia.

Laboratory testing linked the meningitis cases to a specific fungal pathogen, Fusarium solani. Mexican health authorities determined that poor infection and prevention control practices allowed the bacteria to germinate.

Health officials have not yet linked a specipic pathogen to this newest outbreak in Matamoros.

Authorities in both the US and Mexico want the World Health Organization (WHO) to consider this new outbreak an emergency.

They’ve asked the WHO to declare this outbreak a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC), to get more international collaboration and funding to help respond to this outbreak.

But this doesn’t mean that this fungal meningitis outbreak is of the same magnitude as the Covid-19 pandemic, which was considered a PHEIC from January 2020 to May 2023.

Fungal meningitis can’t directly spread from person to person, so people won’t be at risk unless they underwent procedures at the two clinics.

Forbes reported that medical tourism from the US has continued to grow, with Americans flying in droves to other countries for surgical procedures.

A rare bacterial infection linked to contaminated eye drops has also claimed the lives of four Americans this year.