13 children die in Mexico from suspected contaminated IV bags
MEXICO CITY — Thirteen children under 14 have died in central Mexico, and authorities say they suspect contaminated IV feeding bags as the culprit.
The federal health department ordered doctors across the country not to use IV nutrition bags made by the company Productos Hospitalarios S.A. de C.V., though the exact source of the infections is still under investigation. Phone calls to numbers listed for the company and emails seeking comment went unanswered.
The outbreak appeared to be from Klebsiella oxytoca, a multidrug-resistant bacterium. It was first detected in November at three government hospitals and one private hospital in the state of Mexico, on the outskirts of Mexico City.
The department said the children appeared to have died from a bloodstream infection.
K. oxytoca has been ruled out in one of 20 possible cases. The bacterium is suspected in four cases and has been confirmed in 15. Of the 19 patients, 13 have died and the other six patients are being treated at hospitals.
Mexico’s children have the highest consumption of junk food in Latin America, according to the U.N. children’s agency, which has called child obesity there an emergency.
President Claudia Sheinbaum, when asked about the cluster of cases, said Thursday: “[Health officials] told me about a case yesterday, but let’s say, it’s under control.”
It was the latest public blow to Mexico’s tottering, underfunded healthcare system. Last week, the director of the country’s flagship national cardiology institute said that the hospital didn’t have money to buy essential supplies, calling the situation “critical.”
Dr. Jorge Gaspar, the hospital’s director, wrote an internal letter saying that budget cuts “have affected the acquisition of supplies necessary for the institution’s functioning.”
In a subsequent public letter the next day, Gaspar clarified that the initial message was intended for an “internal” audience and assured the public that “we are working to solve the situation.”
Mexico has been plagued by contaminated medical supply scandals for years.
In 2023, authorities arrested an anesthesiologist they blamed for an outbreak of meningitis that killed 35 patients and sickened 79.
The doctor, whose name was withheld, apparently carried his own morphine from one private hospital to another, spreading a fungal infection that had contaminated the medication at the first clinic, authorities said.
Children across Mexico grow up learning the voladores ritual, where they fly around a 100-foot tree.
The drug may not have been stored properly. Some smaller hospitals or maternity clinics in Mexico don’t have their own dispensing pharmacies or are not authorized to handle controlled medications like opiates, and have long relied on anesthesiologists to bring their own.
In 2020, 14 people died after a hospital run by Mexico’s state-owned oil company gave a drug to dialysis patients that was contaminated with bacteria. More than 69 patients were sickened.
Former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who left office Oct. 1, complained frequently that drug supply companies were charging too much, and essentially revamped the medical purchasing system, pledging to provide Mexicans with healthcare that is “better than in Denmark.”
However, the new system of government-run warehouses has foundered, plagued by chronic shortages of supplies and drugs, and a gargantuan government supply depot that López Obrador set up and called the “mega drug store” now sits largely empty.
Sign up for Essential California
The most important California stories and recommendations in your inbox every morning.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
