For 2012 Outbreak Victims A Frightening Deja Vu

By Walter F. Roche Jr.

Though there are some important differences the ongoing outbreak of the Coronavirus has brought back some frightening memories to victims of another medical nightmare, the 2012 fungal meningitis outbreak.
"This definitely takes Ken and I back to 2012," said Donna Borton, whose husband Ken was one of dozens of Michigan victims of the fungal meningitis outbreak.
Citing daily meetings between doctors and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Borton remembered "the helplessness we felt when we would ask the doctors and they would reply,'We don't know.'"
"It was uncharted territory with no vaccine or cure," recalled Dawn Elliott, an Indiana outbreak victim.
Elliott noted that one important difference is that there was no risk of contagion in the 2012 outbreak, the victims had been injected with a spinal steroid laden with deadly fungi.
Indeed the ongoing outbreak, officially labeled Covid 19, has spread from continent to continent and is now taking victims from Washington state to Tennessee to Pennsylvania and the northeast. Though it wasn't known at the outset, contagion or person to person spread turned out to not be an issue in 2012. The culprit was a drug compounding firm in Massachusetts that shipped out thousands of vials of contaminated methylprednisolone acetate.
Yet like the 2012 outbreak the unknowns about the Covid 19 outbreak are abundant.
"We had never before experienced anything like that," Borton said."The first time we got that 'We don't know' response we were dumbfounded."
Though several drug companies are now working on a possible Covid 19 vaccine, such a cure is months or years away.
In the 2012 outbreak, experts conceded they were dealing with an unknown. Eventually treatment focused on anti-fungal drugs like Voriconazole which many victims found made them even sicker.
"It was uncharted territory," agreed Joan Peay, a Tennessee victim who suffered not one but two bouts of fungal meningitis.
"I don't know about the after effects of of the Coronavirus, but certainly do of the fungal meningitis," Peay added.
And she noted that in both cases innocent people have become the victims.
As to after effects Peay says she is still feeling them both from the meningitis and the anti-fungal medications.
She said those continuing problems are difficulty in comprehension and arachnoiditis, an extremely painful condition around the site where the tainted drugs were injected.
Elliott noted that another similarity is the fact that both outbreaks were "both man made and could have been totally avoided if it had not been for carelessness."
And the 2012 victims say from their experiences, they certainly sympathize with the victims of Covid 19
"We feel for everyone who has been infected with this disease. We hope that a solution is found soon," Borton concluded.
Contact: wfrochejr999@gmail.com