ROANOKE, Va. (AP) — An autopsy has confirmed a 47-year-old Virginia man died Sept. 18 of acute fungal meningitis.
District administrator Tracie Cooper of the Roanoke office of the state medical examiner said Friday that Douglas Wingate of Salem was infected with the form of meningitis as the result of a spinal injection.
While state public health officials have not identified Wingate as one of hundreds who received a possibly tainted batch of steroids, they have acknowledged one death in Virginia as a result of wide outbreak of the rare, potentially deadly strain of meningitis.
The state Department of Public Health said nearly 700 people may have received steroid injections from a tainted batch. More than two dozen have become ill.
Nationally, 170 people have been sickened in the outbreak and 14 have died.
