Report: 1 dead, 5 others infected from mold at Seattle Children’s Hospital
Jul 2, 2019, 6:43 PM | Updated: Jul 3, 2019, 9:54 am
Operating rooms at Seattle Children's are now closed indefinitely. (KIRO 7 file photo)
(KIRO 7 file photo)
Seattle Children’s Hospital has reported one death and five additional infections from a mold that had previously forced the facility to close its main operating rooms.
According to a report from The Seattle Times, the patient who died was infected in 2018. The operating rooms were initially shut down in May, after air tests detected a potentially dangerous fungus known as Aspergillus.
Four operating rooms at the hospital’s main Seattle campus were closed on May 18. The remaining 10 were closed six days later. Three of the affected patients were infected in 2018, while the other three contracted infections from the mold this year.
Aspergillus is common and usually harmless. But, according to the Centers for Disease Control, people with weakened immune systems or lung diseases who are exposed are susceptible to allergic reactions and infections.
The hospital told the Times that its operating rooms have been infected off and on for “about a year,” due to issues with the room’s air handling and purification systems.
In May, representatives from the hospital told KIRO Radio that the risk to patients from the mold was “very low.” Now, 1,000 surgeries have been postponed or moved to other hospitals, with the Seattle Children’s operating rooms shuttered indefinitely.
