Mexican health authorities suspended operation at this medical clinic in Matamoros, Tamaulipas after reports that a number of cosmetic surgery patients were exposed to a potentially deadly fungal meningitis. Twelve patients with probable or confirmed cases died.In early 2023, a rare but deadly form of meningitis began appearing across the United States, especially among patients who had undergone cosmetic surgery at two clinics in Matamoros, Mexico, a city across the border from Texas.
The patients tended to be young women, mostly in their 20s and 30s, who had received epidurals for surgeries like tummy tucks and Brazilian butt lifts between Jan. 1 and May 13, 2023, at the two clinics. "There are great, great clinics abroad with very well-trained physicians and very serious hospitals that are even certified by the accrediting bodies here in the United States — so you just need to do a lot of due diligence," Ostrosky said.
However, this type of fungal meningitis in healthy young people is"a really uncommon thing," he said. "That's when we kind of changed the course of the illness and we started to have some survivors," Ostrosky said."People that were on the verge of dying, we were starting to rescue them."