Thirteen children dead in Mexico due to suspected IV bag contamination

At least 13 children have died in Mexican medical centres due to suspected IV bag contamination, health officials said on Thursday.

The exact source of the infections is still under investigation.

The children, all under the age of 14, died across three public facilities and one private clinic in Mexico from a blood infection linked to a possible outbreak of Klebsiella oxytoca, a multidrug-resistant bacteria, which was reportedly first detected in November.

Of 20 possible cases, the bacteria was ruled out in one case, suspected in four and confirmed in 15 cases. Of the 19 patients, 13 died and the six others are being treated at hospitals, the Associated Press reported.

The health ministry in a statement said: “Ongoing analyses are seeking to identify the source of the outbreak and monitoring is being maintained to rule out possible outbreaks in other entities.”

Mexico’s president Claudia Sheinbaum said she was informed about a case yesterday but “let’s say, it’s under control.”

This is the recent blow to Mexico’s underfunded failing healthcare system. Last week, the director of the country’s flagship national cardiology institute, Jorge Gaspar, said the hospital didn’t have money to buy essential supplies, calling the situation “critical”. Dr Gaspar 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, he clarified that the initial message was intended for an “internal” audience and assured the public that “we are working to solve the situation”.

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 morphine from one private hospital to another, spreading a fungal infection that contaminated the medication at the first clinic, authorities said.

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 thus 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 in that outbreak.

Additional reporting by agencies