Owing to a deadly fungal outbreak, the authorities in the US and Mexico have requested the World Health Organization (WHO) to declare a public health emergency of international concern. The request was conveyed after US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) informed that two people who got surgeries involving epidural anaesthesia, died of meningitis.
Recruiters reportedly lured patients from multiple countries and 24 US states to two facilities named River Side Surgical Center and Clinica K-3 in Mexico for cosmetic operations that may have exposed them to the fungus. Both facilities have been shut down by the authorities.
The CDC is currently monitoring over 400 people who may have visited the facility to avail the services. They have also requested others who had surgeries at either of the two facilities to get evaluated, even if they are currently asymptomatic.
“All have been notified, and are under evaluation, and we were working with transplant centers and other partners to properly manage these patients who had these organs transplanted into their bodies,” CDC’s Dallas Smith was quoted as saying by CBS.
“There’s these agents that act as recruiters in the U.S. for patients, they link US patients to these clinics to receive certain care, and certain procedures like cosmetic procedures,” he said.
“Because patients in Mexico, the United States, Canada, and Colombia were on the exposed list, we wanted to make sure these countries were aware, and provide such situational awareness, through a public health emergency of international concern.”
Although fungal meningitis is not contagious and can be treated with antifungal medicines – allowing the symptoms to simmer can quickly induce life-threatening conditions.
WHO cannot immediately approve the request
Despite the requests from the two countries, WHO cannot immediately declare a public health emergency. To do so, a WHO committee will have to convene and decide on the severity of the outbreak and if it is necessary to sound the bugle. Notably, the global health body receives such alerts in abundance every day but not all end up reaching that stage.
“[We] are notified of hundreds of events every day and assess each one,” WHO spokesperson Margaret Ann Haris said in an email.
(With inputs from agencies)
