FDA warns higher-risk patients amid meningitis outbreak

By the CNN Wire Staff

updated 5:29 PM EDT, Wed October 24, 2012

(CNN) -- The Food and Drug Administration has listed on its website more than 3,000 medical facilities across the nation that have received potentially tainted products and urged that patients who received higher-risk products be alerted.

Of the facilities identified as having received products from the New England Compounding Center, nearly half (1,279) received medications that the FDA considers at higher risk of causing an infection.

The warning covers medications shipped from the company since May 21.

Tainted medications from the compounding center have been blamed for an outbreak of fungal meningitis that has caused 24 deaths and 317 cases of illness.

In a posting late Tuesday, the drug agency urged the facilities to warn patients who may have received the higher-risk products to be alert to the signs of fungal meningitis, which include headache and fever.

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