* Four more deaths confirmed in past 24 hours
* FDA agents search offices of firm in Boston
* Patients continue to contact doctors with symptoms
BOSTON/WASHINGTON, Oct 17 (Reuters) - The number of deaths
from a U.S. meningitis outbreak linked to contaminated steroid
medications rose to 19 on Wednesday, just hours after federal
agents raided the offices of the company at the center of the
scandal and took away documents.
The Centers for Disease Control said states had confirmed
four more deaths in the last 24 hours as the national outbreak
grew.
Two of the deaths were in Tennessee, the hardest hit state
with eight deaths since the infection was discovered in late
September. Virginia and Florida each reported one new fatality.
The daily tally was a reminder that one of the worst U.S.
health scares in recent years has not been contained, despite
emergency steps to recall the medications and stop the use of
products from New England Compounding Center of Massachusetts.
One of the victims was a 78-year-old man in Marion County,
Florida, the Florida Department of Health said.
The number of new cases of meningitis from the injections
rose by 14 on Wednesday, reaching 245, the CDC said. It said
there had been another two infections that have not been
confirmed as meningitis.
Meningitis is an infection of the membranes covering the
brain and spinal cord. Fungal meningitis is not contagious.
The meningitis scare began last month when people began
arriving at the emergency room of St Thomas hospital in
Nashville, Tennessee with severe headaches and other symptoms
after receiving epidural injections for back pain from a
separate clinic housed in the hospital building.
The injections were from steroid produced by NECC of
Massachusetts and shipped to 76 medical facilities in 23 states.
Health authorities have scrambled to contact nearly 14,000
patients at risk of meningitis and to remove all the products
suspected of being contaminated from the shelves.
But the product was shipped as early as late May and
patients continue to contact doctors with headaches, fever,
nausea and stroke-like symptoms. Cases of the disease have been
confirmed in 15 states and deaths in six.
OFFICES SEARCHED
The scare has prompted a host of federal and state
investigations. On Tuesday evening, U.S. Food and Drug
Administration agents searched NECC offices in the Boston suburb
of Framingham and emerged with a large trove of documents.
NECC is a "compounding" pharmacy, firms that prepare
specific doses of approved medications, based on guidance from a
doctor, to meet an individual patient's need. It shipped
products throughout the United States.
The Framingham raid came as pressure increased for
investigators to determine how the product was contaminated and
who is responsible.
"If the investigation finds any criminal misdoings, the
Department of Justice must act decisively, file charges and
prosecute the company or individuals responsible," said
Connecticut Democratic Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro, who has
introduced legislation to give FDA more authority to regulate
compounding pharmacies.
A lawyer for NECC said the raid was unnecessary.
"We have been clear that (NECC) would provide, and has
provided, anything requested," Paul Cirel, of Collora LLP in
Boston, said in a statement.
The FDA, which inspected NECC facilities prior to the raid,
warned doctors in a conference call on Tuesday that the agency
could not guarantee the sterility of NECC products. It said
federal and state health authorities were trying to trace all
products from NECC around the country.
A list of more than 131,000 shipping invoices for NECC
products shipped to medical facilities across the United States
was sent to state health authorities by the FDA earlier this
week, the Tennessee Health Department said on its website.
In Tennessee alone, 74 healthcare facilities received
shipments from NECC, the state said.
(Additional reporting by David Bailey, Michael Peltier, David
Morgan, Ros Krasny, Toni Clarke, Bill Berkrot, Svea
Herbst-Bayliss, David Morgan and Tim Ghianni; Editing by David
Brunnstrom)
