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Officials at Catholic Medical Center in Manchester, New Hampshire, believe as many as eight patients may have been exposed to a life-threatening, dementia-causing disease as a result of unsterilized tools used in their neurosurgery unit.

According to the Department of Health and Human Services, a neurosurgical patient treated at the New Hampshire hospital is suspected to have had sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), a degenerative neurological disease caused by a prion, a defective protein. Officials at the hospital believe that the prion may have been transmitted to patients through surgical equipment that was not fully sterilized. During normal sterilization procedures, these prions may not be fully eradicated.

CJD has only been transmitted through surgical procedures four times, and never has this type of incident occurred in the United States. Officials also believe that the disease may have been transmitted to patients in other states, as the surgical equipment that was used, was rented. A spokesperson for the hospital and the director of public health, Dr. Jose Montero, said he believed that the risk for transmission and infection of the disease was minimal, however after extensive investigation, it could not be concluded that there was absolutely no risk for infection.

What is Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease?

Spontaneous CJD has no known cause, and occurs unexpectedly. It is characterized as a progressive brain and nervous system disease that causes dementia and eventually death. Some of the most common early onset symptoms include personality changes, confusion, memory loss, impaired judgment, loss of muscle coordination, and loss of vision. Unfortunately there is no treatment or cure for CJD.
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According to Massachusetts health officials, hundreds of residents may have been exposed to measles while visiting Massachusetts General Hospital, which is located in Boston, and MetroWest Medical Center in Framingham. The exposures would have taken place at the Boston hospital between 8/17 and 8/23 at the medical walk-in clinic, the ER, or at inpatient spaces and at the Framingham facility between 8/23 and 8/24 also at inpatient areas and the ER.

The infection risk came from two people, a child and an adult, that sought treatment at the hospitals. While most people have received the measles vaccine and are not at risk of contracting measles, pregnant women, young kids, and people whose immune systems are compromised are at risk of developing serious related complications.

Common measles complications may include vomiting, diarrhea, eye infection, inner ear infection, laryngitis, and fever fits. More serious complications, although not as common, can include pneumonia, meningitis, encephalitis, hepatitis, thrombocytopenia, croup, squint, optic neuritis (which can cause blindness), nervous system problems, heart problems, subacute sclerosing panencephalitis of the brain, which may not surface for years after exposure and can be fatal.