What should I do? That is a question both patients and clinicians found themselves asking during this outbreak. The CDC, however, came to the rescue be instructing clinicians to follow a few steps. Clinicians must first cease all use of products from NECC and determine if they have administrated these toxic injections to any of their patients. Once that is established, those patients, if any, should be contacted immediately. Patients then must be evaluated for meningitis signs and symptoms. The CDC also reminded clinicians that it is also important to remember that some patients may have very mild symptoms, even symptoms extremely close to baseline, however, they are not to be overlooked for possible infection. The next step is for those exhibiting symptoms to be diagnosed, reported, and treated with anti-fungal drugs. In addition to the CDC, FDA advised all clinicians who may have treated patients after May 21, 2012 with the any injectable product from…show more content… The key to the success was that once recognized, cases dropped tremendously after treatment (refer to fig x). However, there was about 1% of the infected population that relapsed about a year (some cases two years) after the outbreak. Because the Mycoses Study Group Education and Research Consortium and CDC determination and consistency of conducting follow-up studies on these patients, these later cases of relapse were successfully identified; the latest case being November 2014 (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2016). It has been stated that prolonged treatment of anti-fungal drugs may be a requirement for some patients with severe central nervous damage (Smith, Tipple, Chaudry, & Schaefer, 2013). According to the CDC as of October 2015, patient recovery from this outbreak should continue to be monitored and treated as clinicians see fit (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
