ODH looking for answers at local surgeon's office - WTRF 7 News Sports Weather - Wheeling Steubenville

A local surgeon's office is among a list of facilities released by The Ohio Department of Health of all Ohio health care providers who purchased medications from New England Compounding Center.

Medication provided by the NECC may have been contaminated with a fungus that has led to some patients developing a rare form of fungal meningitis (brain infection) and stroke.

According to a press release from the ODH, Khoury Surgical Group, INC. of St. Clairsville received medication from NECC in a time frame since May 2012.

Dr. Khoury specializes in vascular surgery.

They are now asking those health care providers to follow-up with any patients who received injectable products from NECC since May of 2012.

According to a press release from the ODH, Dr. Ted Wymyslo, director at ODH, said they do not have a count on the number of patents that received drugs in the extended recall list.

ODH used a statewide health emergency alerting system to contact healthcare providers and hospitals through the state with additional guidance from the FDA.

ODH expects every patient who received a recalled injection to be notified.

The medication being recalled is a widely distributed steroid medication used to treat back pain and is administered by injection.

Unlike bacterial or viral meningitis, fungal meningitis cannot be spread person-to-person.

According to the CDC, Ohio currently has seven cases of fungal meningitis, no deaths, that have been linked to back injections with steroids distributed by NECC.

Across the country there are currently 233 cases in 15 states with a total and 15 deaths.

This is an on-going investigation by the OHD, CDC and FDA.

For more information regarding meningitis cases in Ohio related to this recall and the status of the investigation you can visit:

http://www.odh.ohio.gov/en/features/odhfeatures/MeningitisLinkedtoInjections/MeningitisLinkedtoInjections.aspx

http://www.cdc.gov/hai/outbreaks/meningitis.html