Mexican authorities have updated the death toll from the meningitis outbreak reported in the province of Durango, which has risen to 18 dead women.
On Wednesday, a 19-year-old woman who was in intensive care for meningitis caused by a fungus died.
The Secretary of Health, Irasema Kondo, has indicated that the current cases are 68, while she has pointed out that the people who may be at risk are 1,400.
Kondo has detailed that there are patients who continue with the treatment in spite of not having symptoms, thanks to the fact that the evolution has been favorable. Meanwhile, he acknowledged that mortality is high despite the treatments.
«The evidence is that they are stable, that there is improvement. However, we know that the evolution of the disease is uncertain. The patients who have become complicated, there is no medical criterion that predicts that they will present complications», explained the Ministry of Health, as reported by ‘Milenio’.
The Undersecretary of Prevention and Health Promotion, Hugo Lopez Gatell, has declared that this disease is not transmitted from one person to another, but that the presumed cause of the infection of the patients was through an anesthesia procedure.
Demonstrators -family and friends of the victims, as well as other citizens– have marched in the streets of Durango to demand justice from the authorities, reports the Reforma news agency.
«I march for the children who are left without a mother due to medical negligence,» the people attending the demonstration cried out, according to the newspaper ‘El Sol de Puebla’.
