ILLINOIS—In the wake of five Illinois patients suffering complications from receiving steroid injections containing Methylprednisolone Acetate, the drug is now being recalled.
Including the five from the Herrin area, there have been two identified in North Carolina. They too had steroid injections.
Reports include patients coming down with pockets of pus at the site where they were injected with the steroid.
One of those is reported as having signs of fungal meningitis, although no meningitis has been reported out of Herrin.
The injections are said to contain the same medication that was at the center of last year’s deadly outbreak of fungal meningitis that sickened 26 people in five states and killed four.
Illinois state health department officials say that a full-scale state and federal investigation has been launched into the Main Street Family Pharmacy, in Newbern, Tenn.
That pharmacy has been identified as the one that shipped the injections to the Logan Primary Care clinic in Herrin.
All five Illinois patients are said to have received their injections at that clinic.
Logan Primary Care says they have contacted approximately 2,000 patients who received the shots between December 6, 2012 and April 24 in Herrin and West Frankfort.
“Out of an abundance of caution, we are personally contacting every patient,” said Dr. Jeff Parks, of Logan Primary Care in Herrin.
The Illinois department of public health says it has two priorities: the first to make sure all the Tennessee steroid injections are off the shelves, and second to make sure everyone who received the shot is notified.