Private hospitals blamed in Mexico for meningitis outbreak

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Prosecutors in northern Mexico have blamed private hospitals for contaminated anesthetics that caused a meningitis outbreak that has killed 22 people and sickened at least 71. Prosecutors in Durango state said Monday they have issued seven arrest warrants for the owners or directors of four private hospitals where the outbreak occurred starting in October.  Almost all of those infected were women undergoing obstetric procedures, and received a type of anesthesia known as a spinal block. The shots were contaminated with a fungus. Some had worried the medication itself had been contaminated in the manufacturing or distribution process, but authorities said the problem arose at the hospitals.