Meningitis Victim's Death May Not Be Recorded

One of the Tennessee victims of last year's fungal meningitis outbreak may not have been recorded among the official death records.

The Tennessean reports federal court filings show Gokulbhai Patel of Goodlettsville died Jan. 13. He had received spinal injections at the Saint Thomas Outpatient Neurosurgical Center in Nashville. But records from the outbreak kept by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show no deaths in January.

The outbreak is blamed on contaminated steroids from the New England Compounding Center in Massachusetts.

Attorneys for several of the victims said they believe other deaths may have gone unrecorded as well.

The official death count in Tennessee is 15, with 153 patients sickened. Nationwide, 63 deaths have been recorded with 749 patients sickened.