News

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has issued a final investigation update regarding the multistate outbreak of Salmonella Typhimurium and Salmonella Newport infections linked to cantaloupe.

Ben Taub General Hospital (BTGH) is a 575-bed public teaching hospital serving residents of Harris County, Texas. It is one of only two designated Level 1 Trauma Centers in Houston, Texas. The Trauma Surgical Intensive Care Unit (TSICU) is a 30-bed unit consisting of 24 open ward beds and six isolation rooms. Catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTIs) are the most common of the healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) in all hospitals across the United States costing $565 million annually. The majority of these CAUTIs (50 percent to 75 percent) are preventable.

On Oct. 4, 2012, the CDC and FDA hosted a briefing to discuss the multi-state investigation of meningitis among patients who have received epidural steroid injections. According to Benjamin Park, MD, medical officer, Mycotic Diseases Branch, Division of Foodborne, Waterborne, and Environmental Diseases, National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases at the CDC, there have been 35 cases in six states: Tennessee (25), North Carolina 1), Florida (2), Virginia (4), Maryland (2) and Indiana (1). There have been five deaths: three in Tennessee, one in Virginia, and one in Maryland.

The Tennessee Department of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are investigating cases of meningitis involving 11 patients treated at one outpatient surgical center/pain management clinic in Nashville and one patient treated at a facility in another state. The form of meningitis in these patients is not transmitted from person to person and the cause for the cluster of cases is not known. Two patients related to this cluster of meningitis have died.