The Contagion | Translation

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The following English translation was generated with the assistance of artificial intelligence

[Daniel Alarcón]: Hey, Ambulante.

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Here’s the episode.

[Daniel Alarcón]: This is Radio Ambulante. I’m Daniel Alarcón.

Tania Guerrero was 26 years old when she decided to get pregnant with her second child. By November 2021, she and her husband Brian were living in Durango, a state in northwestern Mexico, and felt financially stable enough to expand their family. Stable enough, too, to pay for delivery at a private hospital with more specialized care. They wanted to avoid the experience at the public hospital they’d had the first time around. For both of them, that was a key point.

[Tania Guerrero]: It was like: “Okay, we’re going to have a baby.” We have the means now, maybe… It’s not like we had money to spare…. But we have to make the effort so that this time it’s different.

[Daniel A.]: Because while Tania’s first pregnancy had proceeded normally and without complications, the experience at the hospital where she gave birth was not a good one. It was the Materno Infantil hospital in Durango, one of the largest public hospitals in the state.

It wasn’t any one thing that happened, but rather a sum of many small annoyances and discomforts that made it a bad experience: most of the time she felt the treatment was not kind, but cold. She also remembers that a nurse missed a vein and injured her hand. She was in pain for days. After the delivery, she had to stay on a gurney in the emergency room because there was no available bed for her recovery. She says they didn’t even give her blankets to cover herself from the cold. On top of that, due to hospital policy, her husband couldn’t be with her at any point, he had to wait outside.

[Tania G.]: So it was an experience we didn’t want to repeat, and I wanted him to be with me, you know?

[Daniel A.]: So six years later, with this second pregnancy, Tania and her husband began exploring private clinics that offered relatively affordable packages for the day of delivery. These typically include medical check-ups, operating room rental, and the medical care for that day.

Tania’s best friend recommended a hospital where she herself had given birth just a few months earlier. It was called Hospital del Parque, and it was located in a middle-class residential area of the city, not far from where Tania lived. It was a single-story building with white and blue walls.

[Tania G.]: From the moment you walked into the reception area, the staff were very friendly. The façade was lovely — the furniture, the waiting rooms were beautiful, it was clean, it looked good, it looked expensive.

[Daniel A.]: And most importantly, her friend had a great experience there. She told Tania she had no complaints, that she had felt safe and accompanied at every moment. The hospital offered a package for 13,500 pesos, about 680 dollars at the time. They were happy with it and paid. Every month, Tania diligently went in for gynecological check-ups. They weighed her, did an ultrasound, and prescribed vitamins. Tania really liked the attention. She felt she was in good hands.

[Tania G.]: I really liked the explanations the doctor gave me. Like, I could ask him anything and he’d explain it in simple terms, in plain language.

[Daniel A.]: Tania was at home on the night of August 18, 2022, when — nine months pregnant — her water finally broke. She immediately went to the hospital and as soon as she arrived they did an ultrasound that confirmed she was losing amniotic fluid. It was important to induce labor. They gave her medication to trigger contractions, but despite the intense pain and the passing hours, she wasn’t dilating. The doctor then presented her with the option of a cesarean section.

[Tania G.]: I said, “No, no, not a C-section” — I thought it would be very… I have a son. I can’t just lie down through a full recovery, which is what a C-section would mean. I knew how long the recovery would take.

[Daniel A.]: They waited a couple more hours, hoping she would finally dilate. But still nothing. The pain was continuous. Then the doctor told her they could try something else: they could give her spinal anesthesia to block the pain and see if, once her body relaxed a bit, dilation would progress enough for a vaginal delivery.

[Tania G.]: The first time he suggested it, I said no! I don’t want it. But there came a point where I started vomiting and the pain was horrible, and I told him: “You know what? Yes, give me the anesthesia.”

[Daniel A.]: With her husband’s help, Tania hunched over so the doctor could administer the anesthesia. She was in so much pain that she barely felt the needle the doctor was inserting into her spine.

In seconds she began to feel the effect. Her body relaxed and the pain disappeared. They quickly took her to the operating room and, in less than five minutes, Tania heard her daughter cry.

[Tania G.]: I hear her crying, I see her, and oh! Everything just lifts automatically, everything disappears — and physiologically, the discomfort is gone, you know? It’s minimal.

[Daniel A.]: She was born naturally, thanks to the relaxation from the anesthesia. She looked healthy. Everything was fine. The next day, they were discharged.

The joy of having her second daughter at home made Tania spend several days refusing to admit she was feeling unwell.

[Tania G.]: I had constant headaches. I felt very fatigued, but I associated it with not sleeping, right? For me it was just: I’m not sleeping well, of course I’m going to feel bad.

[Tania G.]: Then there were the dizziness spells. I thought, well, maybe I don’t know, something changed in me and I no longer have the same tolerance. I told myself it was probably age.

[Daniel A.]: But no. It wasn’t the lack of sleep. Or her age. And she wasn’t alone. At that very moment, dozens of women across the city were feeling exactly the same way Tania was. The situation was far more serious than anyone had imagined.

Mexican journalist Selene Mazón tells us the story.

[Selene Mazón]: Tania kept feeling ill for months, always thinking the discomfort was a normal part of recovering from childbirth. It wasn’t until November 6, 2022, that she suspected it might be something more. That day, by chance, she saw a post on Facebook.

[Tania]: I saw a news report saying that several women who had recently given birth at private hospitals via C-section were hospitalized with meningitis.

[Selene Mazón]: Tania had heard of the disease before but didn’t know much about it, and had never known anyone who had it. The post also listed some symptoms.

[Tania G.]: Headache, neck pain, fatigue, nausea, vomiting, dizziness, and unbearable pain. Stabbing headaches. Ringing in the ears as well.

[Selene M.]: Everything she was feeling. She went straight to the comments. There were dozens of them, but one in particular alarmed her.

[Tania G.]: I clearly remember one that said: “My sister gave birth on August 19th and she’s been hospitalized.” And I thought: that’s the same day I gave birth, so…

[Selene M.]: The post said that women who had given birth at private hospitals between May and November 2022 and who had symptoms should go to two public health centers to get tested and find out if they were infected. It didn’t say much more.

Tania was worried, and although she tried to carry on with her day normally, taking care of her children and telling herself that what she was feeling was nothing, the idea of having meningitis wouldn’t leave her alone. Her younger sister was at the house with her at that moment, so she asked her to come along.

[Tania G.]: “I said: You know what? I’m not comfortable. I want to go get tested.”

[Selene M.]: At the hospital, as soon as the nurses heard her symptoms and medical history, they told her she needed to stay and be admitted for testing.

[Tania G.]: It was like a bucket of cold water, because I thought — isn’t this quick? Just a blood test? So honestly, when I walked in I didn’t even know what they were going to do to me.

[Selene M.]: Frightened, Tania checked herself in. First they ran blood tests, then a head CT scan, and finally, they asked her to take off her clothes, put on a gown, and lie in the fetal position. They were going to perform a lumbar puncture — a procedure that uses a thin needle to extract a sample of cerebrospinal fluid, a clear liquid that surrounds and protects the spinal cord and brain.

[Tania G.]: For me it was horrible. It was exactly what I had tried to avoid this whole time, and now I had to go through it.

[Selene M.]: She had wanted to avoid discomfort and pain — that was why she had gone to a private hospital. And now she was in a situation she had never imagined: faced with the threat of a disease she didn’t know much about. She felt vulnerable, overwhelmed.

She came out of the puncture telling herself everything was fine and she’d be home soon. They moved her to the emergency ward and, a few hours later, to the inpatient area, while her husband and sister waited outside for news. Brian, Tania’s husband, declined to be interviewed for this story, but Reyna, her sister, told me that all the family members were very frightened by everything that was happening.

Tania was taken to a room with white walls and three individual beds separated by green curtains. Beside each one was a visitor’s chair and a small bedside table. Her father came to keep her company for a while, and that’s when a doctor appeared.

[Tania G.]: She told my father and me that they basically don’t know what we have. It’s probably meningitis, but they don’t know what to give us without knowing the cause. Because there are different types of meningitis — bacterial, and different kinds. And obviously, the treatment depends on the type. So we don’t know what to give you. The most likely outcome is that you will die.

[Selene M.]: “The most likely outcome is that you will die.” That’s what she was told.

[Tania G.]: For me, hearing that was too difficult. I came here to rule it out, and not even 12 hours in, you’re telling me I’m going to die?

[Selene M.]: The doctor continued, reciting the steps ahead.

[Tania G.]: She told us they would keep running tests and for now would give us medication, because what the cerebrospinal fluid did indicate was an anomaly — there was inflammation of the meninges, which is extremely dangerous.

[Selene M.]: But let’s back up: what exactly is meningitis? Let’s start by understanding that the brain is covered by three membranes called meninges. Cerebrospinal fluid flows between them — a clear fluid that protects and nourishes the nervous system. When those membranes become inflamed, that system stops working properly. That inflammation of the meninges is called meningitis.

The inflammation causes the tissue inside the skull to swell and increases pressure on the brain. This can trigger seizures, brain damage, and permanent consequences such as blindness, deafness, paralysis, or weakness in the limbs.

Meningitis can have several causes: bacteria, viruses, parasites, or fungi. It is a serious disease that can become very dangerous — and in some cases, fatal. For example, one in six people who contract bacterial meningitis dies. And of those who survive, one in five is left with serious complications.

Tania could not fully process everything she was hearing. She could only think about her children.

[Tania G.]: I was there, basically crying all the time, because I was worried — thinking the baby might not be eating, what are they going to tell my son? He’s going to notice I’m gone. All of that kept flooding my mind.

[Selene M.]: The doctor continued.

[Tania G.]: The instructions at that point were: don’t move, don’t exert yourself, no movement at all — but that didn’t even guarantee that nothing would happen to us, because most of them were dying in their sleep.

[Selene M.]: Tania was lying in the bed by the window. In the one closest to the door was another woman. There was an empty bed between them. She was also a new mother and had been admitted on suspicion of meningitis. That afternoon, despite the curtains providing a bit of privacy, Tania heard something that terrified her.

[Tania G.]: I heard her telling her mother: “I can’t feel my legs. I can’t move my arms.”

[Selene M.]: It was impossible not to think that would be her in a few hours. During the night, the woman’s condition deteriorated. Tania was woken by sounds and movement in the room.

[Tania G.]: In the early hours of the morning, the doctors came in asking how she was feeling and did a neurological evaluation, she could no longer speak coherently; her words were all tangled together. It was strange. And I thought: is that going to happen to me? They took her to intensive care and I was left alone in the room.

[Selene M.]: In silence. With fear and anxiety. The hours passed. The woman never came back. And the next day, another patient was brought in.

By that point, the Health Secretary had confirmed that around 11 women were infected and that all of them had undergone obstetric surgery at private hospitals in Durango. Two had died: Armida Monárrez, 31, and Adriana Quiñones, 34. They left behind four and three orphaned children, respectively. Like Tania, both had given birth at Hospital del Parque.

During her second day of hospitalization, there was a public announcement. The Durango Health Secretary, Irasema Kondo, released a video statement that was shared on social media and broadcast on television channels.

[Irasema Kondo]: Good morning. This is a message addressed to the people of Durango to provide a precise update on the health situation affecting some patients with aseptic meningitis in the state, who share the common history of having undergone gynecological-obstetric surgery in a private setting. As of today, Monday, November 7th, we have registered 26 confirmed cases.

[Selene M.]: Aseptic meningitis is a type of meningitis in which there is no evidence of a bacterial infection; it can be caused by viruses, fungi, or other agents. The infected patients identified so far — all women at this point — had in common that they had paid for a private delivery service and had undergone some form of gynecological-obstetric surgery between May and November 2022.

[Selene M.]: During the announcement, Kondo explained that after detecting the first cases of women with meningitis symptoms coming from private hospitals, the government had set up a committee of specialists dedicated exclusively to investigating the source of these cases.

[Irasema Kondo]: Samples were taken to confirm or rule out the presence of microorganisms, and we realized that the common factor in all cases may be the medication used as regional block anesthesia.

[Selene M.]: So apparently, the source of the infection was the anesthesia used in certain surgical procedures such as C-sections, hernia repairs, and knee surgeries. For that reason, the committee of specialists asked that this type of anesthesia be avoided as much as possible while the investigation continued.

Although she did not name the hospitals, Kondo said that the cases were concentrated in four private clinics and that measures had already been taken: two had been shut down. At the same time, she made clear that meningitis was not contagious and assured the public that authorities were monitoring the situation.

From her hospital bed, Tania was following the news closely. She remained lying down, barely moving, with the shadow of possible death hanging over her. She couldn’t stop checking social media.

[Tania G.]: It was very, very impossible not to be watching the news. And at that moment, it was daily news about this.

[Selene M.]: While doctors continued testing to identify the source of the meningitis so treatment could begin, Tania and her roommate were started on antibiotics — just in case. In case it turned out to be bacterial meningitis after all. They were also given steroids to treat the brain inflammation.

She and her new roommate were hospitalized for the same reason; both had given birth at Hospital del Parque. But despite having so much in common, they spoke little, each lost in her own thoughts. Even so, Tania felt a certain sense of companionship. She wasn’t the only one going through this.

As a way of trying to understand what was happening, whenever she had the chance, Tania asked the nurses about everything:

[Tania G.]: I was always asking: what are you giving me? What’s it for? What’s this for? Why this IV? Why does this IV look different? I was always like that, because my mother passed away at the IMSS, so I was scared.

[Selene M.]: The IMSS — the Mexican Social Security Institute — Mexico’s public health institution.

[Tania G.]: When my mother died, I thought: that’s not going to happen to me. So my fear was: they’re admitting me here and what if the same thing happens to me?

[Selene M.]: Asking questions gave her a sense of control. She needed something to hold on to amid so much uncertainty.

Then, on November 10, 2022, after four days in the hospital, there was finally some hopeful news.

[Azucena]: “Durango health authorities reported that a fungus is the cause of the aseptic meningitis that has killed three women and left 41 people sedated and under treatment…”

[Tania G.]: I remember reading that and for me it was like a light — okay, we’re halfway there.

[Selene M.]: The State Health Secretary confirmed the presence of the fungus Fusarium Solani in samples of the patients’ cerebrospinal fluid. This fungus is a microorganism found naturally in the environment, primarily in soil, water, and plants.

Now, how did it get into the anesthesia at four private hospitals? That remained an open question. It wasn’t clear whether the contamination had occurred during manufacturing, storage, or distribution — that was still under investigation.

PISA, the pharmaceutical company that produced the investigated batches of anesthesia, released a statement saying its products met all quality standards. But given the uncertainty about where the contamination had occurred, it requested that all suspect batches be withdrawn. Authorities seized those medications for analysis.

The situation was terrible, tragic, and outrageous — but at least now there was an answer about what type of meningitis it was and the possible source had been pulled from circulation. Action was being taken, and with a cause identified, treatment could also begin.

That afternoon, the on-duty neurologist at the public hospital where Tania and other women diagnosed with meningitis were staying went bed to bed to share more information.

[Tania G.]: He was the one who got to tell us: “We know now — it’s caused by a fungus. We’re going to give you medication. We’ve never had to treat this type of fungus in the meninges before. But we’re going to start administering it and, well, it’s at least a small light on the path — we now know what it is, we can get a better sense of what’s going to happen.”

[Selene M.]: The treatment was amphotericin and voriconazole — two very strong drugs administered intravenously to treat fungal infections. The patients had to sign a consent form.

[Tania G.]: Because they’re fairly toxic medications. Not lethal, and they exist for a reason, but they were going to cause certain side effects.

[Selene M.]: Side effects such as hallucinations, vision problems, excessive sweating, nausea, and vomiting. Tania signed without thinking too much about it — it’s not as if she had another choice.

[Tania G.]: So obviously you sign it and you say: whatever has to be.

[Daniel A.]: A break — and we’ll be right back.

[Daniel Alarcón]: Hello, ambulantes.

I want to ask you to help us with something that I know you’re going to like. It’s for a special episode. We know there are many listeners who are curious about Radio Ambulante’s editorial process or the history of the organization… Even about the stories we’ve already done. These are questions that reach us through our contact channels or that people ask us when we attend a conference or event.

So, we came up with the idea of doing an Ask Me Anything, ask me whatever you want. An episode where we answer any doubt or curiosity you have about Radio Ambulante. For that, we want to ask you that if you have any question you’ve always wanted to ask us, send it to us in the form of a voice note to a WhatsApp we have opened. The number is +1 555 917 9841. I repeat: +1 555 917 9841. 

You can also find the link and the number in the episode notes.

Please only send audio notes, hopefully not too long either. And say your name and where you’re listening from before the question.

Thank you very much, we already want to hear you.

[Daniel A.]: We’re back. Selene continues the story.

[Selene M.]: When the cause of the meningitis was identified and treatment began, every day, very early, nurses drew blood samples from Tania. They needed to monitor her white blood cell levels associated with inflammation and verify that the treatment was working. Then the medications were administered intravenously.

The treatment was so aggressive that, as the days passed, Tania’s veins began to collapse. For each medication administration, nurses had to find another vein.

[Tania G.]: We were all punctured everywhere. I still have scars on my hands — they put IVs in every possible spot.

[Selene M.]: Meanwhile, outside, meningitis diagnoses kept multiplying. The medical center with the most cases was Hospital del Parque — Tania’s hospital. Sixty-one people had been confirmed infected. Every day, public hospitals were receiving dozens of women who suspected they were sick. But it wasn’t only women. Some men also appeared — those who had received regional anesthesia for other types of surgery, such as knee operations, though these were far fewer.

[Media 1]: Three more private hospitals in Durango were shut down by the state Prosecutor’s Office due to cases of aseptic meningitis reported in recent weeks. Four clinics have now been linked to these cases.

[Selene M.]: And it was also around that time that questions from the press began to emerge.

[Saúl Maldonado]: At that point, the questions were whether the first cases had been caused by negligence on the part of the doctors, poor hospital infrastructure, or the medications.

[Selene M.]: He is Saúl Maldonado, a local health reporter who covered the story from the very beginning. Everyone was looking for someone to blame. Since there were infections across multiple hospitals, it was most logical that the contamination had come from the same medication, not from how it was handled. That’s how the speculation began.

[Tania G.]: They even started saying: “This medication was brought in from Guadalajara, it was bought on the black market.” All sorts of versions started coming out. The authorities just kept saying, “We’re investigating.”

[Selene M.]: Mexico is the sixth country in the world with the largest market for counterfeit drugs, largely due to the high cost of legal medications and shortages in public health institutions. The suspicion that these medications had reached private hospitals was a serious matter.

But those were just speculation and rumors. The government limited itself to releasing information focused on numbers — not on causes or those responsible. That silence also led social media to fill with content on the subject. One theory held that the medication might have been taken from public hospitals and resold to private clinics, without quality controls or standards. Names of doctors and officials accused of responsibility also began to circulate. But there was no evidence for any of it.

[Saúl M.]: A lot of things were being circulated on social media, a lot of names were being put out there, but the vast majority of what was circulating was false.

[Selene M.]: Things were starting to spiral out of control. But for him and other journalists, there was also the question of whether there had been cases in public hospitals that the health secretary wasn’t being transparent about.

Meanwhile, the state government offered some support to the families: milk, diapers, and help with transportation from their homes to the public hospitals where the women were being treated — especially for those living in rural areas. But for many people, that felt like a small bandage over a gaping wound.

For Tania, each day was a struggle. She remained hospitalized and her symptoms were worsening.

[Tania G.]: I clearly remember when people who weren’t family — friends, for example — came to see me, they had a hard time looking me in the eye or looking at me, because the medication disfigured our faces. We looked shocking. We were tremendously swollen from the steroids.

[Selene M.]: She felt almost disfigured. And yet, that was the least of it. There was also the anguish of being far from her children — especially her baby, whom she had left at barely three months old. Even though the baby was healthy, Tania felt a deep pain about not being there for her: to feed her, to hold her, to love her.

Per hospital policy, children were not allowed in during visiting hours. At that point, the only contact she had with them was through video calls.

[Tania G.]: I’d see her hear my voice and get excited. And my older son would see me and say: “When are you coming home?” I didn’t know what to tell him, because I didn’t know when I was going home — or if I was going home, if I’d ever see him again. I’d just say, “Soon, son, soon,” and then try to talk about school or something. But I could see he was very sad.

[Selene M.]: About three weeks into her hospitalization, a doctor recommended that they write farewell letters to their children. A cathartic measure — but also a realistic, precautionary one.

[Tania G.]: It wasn’t likely we were going to survive. So it was like: I have to say goodbye, and if I can’t see them, the only thing I can do is leave them a letter and tell them — tell them what I won’t be able to say to them later. Especially to the little one, who won’t even remember me.

[Selene M.]: Every time she felt like she was making progress, her body reacted in unexpected ways. One night at the end of November — a month after being hospitalized — following an MRI, Tania began to tremble and her nose started to bleed. She had a high fever.

[Tania G.]: They called my husband because they couldn’t control the trembling, and I thought they were going to send me to intensive care, but when my husband came in — they had already spoken with him — they told me… he seemed to be searching for the right words… “They’re going to transfer you to Torreón.”

[Selene M.]: Torreón, Coahuila — a city three hours from Durango. They told her she probably had pneumonia and needed to be sent to a hospital with sufficient resources to treat her. But that explanation never convinced Tania, and she still doesn’t fully understand why they decided to move her in such a delicate state. No matter how much she objected, there was no room to negotiate. The doctors had already decided for her, and the ambulance was waiting outside.

[Tania G.]: I didn’t want to go, obviously. My dad called to tell me not to resist, to go so that I could get better. And I remember the only thing I said to him was: “If I die there, I’m even less likely to see my children.” I felt like being sent there meant they didn’t know what to do with me anymore. And if I hadn’t had a chance to see them here, I’d have even less of a chance there.

[Selene M.]: Tania arrived in Torreón in the early hours of the morning. The doctors immediately took her to intensive care, where she spent a week connected to monitors and surrounded by cables. During those days, they ran every type of test: cardiac evaluations, CT scans, MRIs, angiograms. But they found nothing.

Her husband rented a small room in the city so he could stay close to her. Tania’s sister, sister-in-law, and mother-in-law stayed in Durango to take care of the children.

To monitor her progress, they had to perform lumbar punctures — the same uncomfortable procedure from the start. Through those tests, they measured the state of her cerebrospinal fluid: they needed the results to show that the infection had cleared. That traumatic moment became routine.

More than a month had passed since her first hospitalization in Durango.

[Tania G.]: In Torreón, I had already given up. I no longer had the strength to eat. I wasn’t eating. I had no desire for anything. I told my husband: I’m so tired. I can’t go on. I’m sorry, but I can’t keep going. I’m exhausted.

[Selene M.]: She felt trapped. In the pain. In the endless tests. In the waiting. She began to think she would never leave.

[Daniel A.]: A break — and we’ll be right back.

[Daniel A.]: We’re back on Radio Ambulante. Selene continues the story.

[Selene M.]: Let’s go back to the investigation into the meningitis outbreak. One month after the situation became public, on December 5, 2022, authorities provided an update on the investigation. By then, 71 cases had been confirmed and 22 deaths recorded.

In an interview with a news program, Health Secretary Irasema Kondo stated that laboratory results showed the fungus that had caused the infections was not present in the batches of anesthesia that had been pulled from the market.

[Irasema]: The hypothesis is that the contamination occurred within the hospital itself, once those medications were opened. That is the conclusion that has been reached.

[Selene M.]: She was siding with the pharmaceutical company. Their batches were not contaminated. The investigation now pointed to the problem having occurred during the handling of the medication, due to a lack of hygiene in the private hospitals.

[Irasema]: At this point, the strongest hypothesis is that one of the medications may have become contaminated because it was being stored in refrigerators that did not meet the required standards — they were not medical-grade — and because of the improper, unhygienic handling of these medications that were used in the majority of patients.

[Selene M.]: In other words: the medication, already contaminated by the fungus, had not been stored properly and had then been reused. But at the time, it seemed unlikely that four private hospitals had all had hygiene and medication-handling problems. This led to yet another line of speculation.

Here again is Saúl Maldonado, the journalist we heard earlier:

[Saúl M.]: The problem was that if it wasn’t the medication, then it was the doctor.

[Selene M.]: Meaning that a single doctor and his handling of the anesthesia had caused the infection of 70 patients.

But the authorities weren’t releasing any names. The explanation had some gaps, and this only fed more speculation. I tried to speak with a representative of the Durango Health Secretary, but although they did respond at first, I never heard back after that.

Let’s return to Tania. There was a surprise in store for her and her family. After three weeks in Torreón, she finally began to improve. Her body started responding to the medication and, little by little, her cerebrospinal fluid analysis began to stabilize — the clearest sign of improvement.

On December 21, 2022 — almost two months after she was first admitted in Durango — the good news arrived: she was going home. To see her children. She would continue treatment with voriconazole on an outpatient basis.

Tania could hardly believe it.

[Tania G.]: When they told me: “You’re done, you can go” — I came out of the elevator, went down the ramp to the main entrance of the IMSS hospital, and for me it was such an emblematic moment: walking out, as best I could, holding on to my sister. But there was an exit. I was going outside. I was going to see sunlight, feel the sun, and breathe fresh air.

[Selene M.]: She was going back home, to be with her children — those she had, in her darkest nights, thought she would never hold again.

[Tania G.]: My son — the first thing he did was look at me and his voice broke, his eyes filled with tears, but he didn’t want to cry. And I told him: “Cry if you want to cry, go ahead.” “I’m here.” He hugged me, I hugged him, and for me it was — I had prayed for that moment for two months. Because all I wanted was to see them: I wanted to feel them, smell them. I wanted to know they were there. They were the only ones that mattered to me if I wasn’t around, the only thing I worried about — what were they going to do.

[Selene M.]: The first week after leaving the hospital, she was very weak. She could barely walk or pick up her baby.

As the days passed, she slowly began to regain her strength. She had to go to the hospital for check-ups and monitoring of her cerebrospinal fluid, for which monthly lumbar punctures were scheduled. On the day of her first appointment back at the hospital, she realized the damage from the meningitis went beyond the physical.

[Tania G.]: I got to the emergency room and I didn’t want to go in. I didn’t want to go in because I felt like I wasn’t going to come back out. My husband had to basically force me inside so they could do the puncture, and I was in tears the entire time I was there.

[Selene M.]: The hospital also began running tests to monitor her kidneys and liver, since the medication was affecting those organs. The toll on her body was evident.

[Tania G.]: Many parts of my body started turning purple from the liver damage, and I lost my hair. I’d shower and run my hand through my hair and come away with fistfuls.

[Selene M.]: During those days, the news reported that many women and their families had filed complaints with the Public Prosecutor’s Office — the institution responsible for building criminal cases and representing victims. But Tania didn’t feel ready to do that. Nor did she want to investigate much about it. She tried to stay on the sidelines: everything related to the case caused her tremendous anxiety.

[Tania G.]: Filing a complaint caused me so much stress, because I knew what a formal complaint involved and that I’d have to recount everything that had happened to me. And if I’m crying now just talking about it, back then it was inconceivable for me to even speak about it.

[Selene M.]: Meanwhile, the official investigation continued, and on February 7, 2023, there was an update.

[Journalist]: “Just over three months after the first death from fungal meningitis, Durango authorities have arrested the first three suspects in connection with the outbreak, which has claimed the lives of 35 people and caused injuries to 44 more as of today.”

[Journalist]: “The Durango Prosecutor’s Office confirmed the arrest of the anesthesiologist held responsible for triggering the meningitis outbreak at four private hospitals in the capital.”

[Selene M.]: The first person arrested was an anesthesiologist, identified as Omar N. — under Mexican law, the surname is not disclosed when a person is a suspect. Two Durango Health Secretary officials were also arrested.

[Journalist]: “As for the public officials, they were accused of neglecting their duties as health guarantors and failing to take action against Hospital del Parque after an inspection in which anomalies were detected.”

[Selene M.]: Here again is Saúl Maldonado:

[Saúl M.]: According to the authorities, this anesthesiologist was the one using the contaminated vial. He was the one being contracted for these surgeries, to work as an anesthesiologist, and he was the one carrying the vial from place to place. That’s why they went after him.

[Selene M.]: Anesthesia generally comes in large vials of 10 or 15 milliliters, but for regional anesthesia, sometimes only 3 to 5 milliliters are needed. So to avoid wasting the drug, some doctors reuse it. If strict protocols aren’t followed, this practice can open the door to contamination.

[Saúl M.]: You save it, maybe you store it properly, then use it for another surgery. And maybe someone comes along and says, “Hey, lend me some because there’s none here.” So you lend it, and that fungus gets passed on to the next patient — and that’s how it started spreading.

[Selene M.]: Meaning, it didn’t necessarily have to be the same anesthesiologist — the transmission could have happened by sharing the same vial.

[Saúl M.]: The moment the fungus got into the vial, the vial was contaminated.

[Selene M.]: The shortage of medications and supplies at private hospitals may have led some doctors to share or reuse the same anesthesia vial — something difficult to accept when you consider these are services you’re paying for.

In addition to the anesthesiologist, the other two individuals arrested were public officials from the Durango Commission for Protection against Health Risks, known as COPRISED — the institution responsible for issuing permits and licenses to medical establishments. Their job is to verify that health centers meet all requirements, and apparently, that had not happened.

In the midst of the back-and-forth of the investigation, a media outlet revealed that two of the hospitals involved — Hospital del Parque and Dickava — belonged to the same family. Both operated under a single permit issued by COPRISED, when they should have had two separate ones. It was also reported that the former director of COPRISED did not hold a medical degree, which is in itself a criminal offense. For that and other reasons, some doctors and private hospital owners pointed the finger at public officials as those responsible for having authorized the clinics to operate. Here again is Saúl:

[Saúl M.]: “If I’m working, it’s because I have your permit.” So — why didn’t you inspect me? Maybe Hospital del Parque says: I have your permit to operate; now you’re telling me there’s contamination, but I have your permit. So they absolutely needed to assign blame to the authorities too.

[Selene M.]: During those days, a video began circulating on social media and was picked up by several news outlets. It was of Omar N., the anesthesiologist. He had recorded it before being arrested, as a form of preemptive defense.

[Omar N.]: I’m making this video in case I am at some point arbitrarily detained, or in case any harm comes to me or my family.

[Selene M.]: In it, he said he had a 13-year career and had administered over 7,000 anaesthesia. He then accused the authorities of conspiring against him.

[Omar N.]: We are concerned that the authorities may act arbitrarily, that they may conceal evidence and information from us, that they want to make us look like criminals and murderers. I have felt a kind of persecution happening beneath the surface — in the shadows, in rumors, in meetings where I’m not named as the guilty party, but where they want to make me look that way.

[Selene M.]: With the video circulating and Omar N. in custody, the Durango Medical Association came out in his defense and called for an end to what it called — in its words — “a media lynching.” In those days, doctors and hospital workers held a protest in his support. They also threatened to go on a full strike if authorities didn’t release the anesthesiologist. Saúl covered it all.

[Saúl M.]: At that point, the argument was: you’re trying to wash your hands by blaming the doctor, when the problem is the medication. They kept insisting that the medication was at fault.

[Selene M.]: On March 9th, a few weeks after the first arrests, the detention of four more people was announced: Erasmo David N., Sandra Danés N., Ilse N., and José Miguel N. — all owners or administrators of the hospitals where cases had been reported. By that point, eight people had been arrested.

I tried to reach Omar N., a doctor from the Medical Association, and Humberto Rosales Ronquillo — who was its president at the time — but none of them responded to my messages.

Nobody wants to talk to the press. Meanwhile, dozens of families live with the consequences of what happened. Dozens of orphaned children, or mothers left gravely ill. And on top of everything, the financial stress that for many feels impossible to overcome. Lives transformed in an instant.

On March 15, 2023 — four months after falling ill — Tania gathered the courage to file a complaint.

This decision came when she started psychiatric treatment. After leaving the hospital, she had begun to experience intense episodes of anxiety and, little by little, fell into a depression. Not long after, she was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.

[Tania G.]: Every dream I had when I slept was that I was inside the hospital and for one reason or another I couldn’t leave. Dreams as absurd as: there’s a zombie apocalypse outside and I can’t get out of the hospital. All my dreams went in that direction.

[Selene M.]: Perhaps that’s why, despite having filed the complaint, Tania stopped following the news as closely. She heard about the arrest of anesthesiologist Omar N. through the media, but didn’t recognize him.

[Tania G.]: Yes, I found out, but when I saw him I said: he didn’t anesthetize me, he’s not the one who anesthetized me. Even though he did anesthetize other women, he didn’t anesthetize me.

[Selene M.]: Tania attended some of the hearings, not all. She told me that at one of them, people claiming to represent Hospital del Parque approached her and offered her 20,000 pesos — less than a thousand dollars — when, according to her, she was owed around 14,000. But the conversations never progressed: they always said they had no money and insisted they were not at fault.

[Tania G.]: They say it was the medication, that they have a way to prove it was the medication and that they are not responsible, and that if they were being accused it was because they were being used as scapegoats to protect the pharmaceutical company. They were absolutely certain and swore they had proof to show it wasn’t their fault, and that they would go free.

[Selene M.]: After two years of legal proceedings, six of the eight arrested were released. Among them were the anesthesiologist and the owners and administrators of hospitals Dickava, Santé, and San Carlos. Through the State Human Rights Commission, it was learned that eight families of people who died from meningitis in Durango had been compensated by two hospitals.

I submitted a formal transparency request to the Prosecutor’s Office for official data on the releases and compensations, but was told the information is classified. After more than three years, none of those who were detained has made any public statement. Saúl Maldonado, the journalist, has a theory about what happened:

[Saúl M.]: I imagine the agreement with the authorities was: “Look, we’re going to make a deal. You don’t stay in prison. Pay the compensation and you’re free.” I imagine the doctors, the owners were saying: “Fine, we’ll pay the compensation.” In the case of Hospital del Parque, when they told him: “Your compensation is going to be this amount because you have this many cases” — he probably said: “Where am I supposed to get that from?” And that’s why he’s still in jail.

[Selene M.]: Because he hasn’t been able to pay. The compensation owed by Hospital del Parque is estimated at more than two million dollars. That hospital accounted for 62 of the 80 confirmed cases of fungal meningitis. Thirty-two of those people died.

The final toll was devastating: 80 people infected — the majority women who had given birth between May and November 2022 — and 41 deaths. Eighty-one children were left without a parent.

In 2025, Tania decided to grant forgiveness and bring the criminal process to an end. She no longer wanted to be involved. She felt that continuing to push was a waste of time; she was fairly certain she would not receive a larger payout from Hospital del Parque. In the end, she accepted the amount she was given — around a thousand dollars. That same year, the owners of Hospital del Parque were sentenced to 24 years in prison.

But the questions remained. The outbreak didn’t stay in Durango: it reached Tamaulipas and crossed the border. In May 2023, the World Health Organization issued an alert regarding cases of fungal meningitis in the United States linked to surgeries performed in Mexico. How it got there is not entirely clear, and that raised even more doubts about the entire process and the information that had been circulating.

In Tania’s case file, the crime was classified as simple bodily harm. But for her, that category comes nowhere close to describing what she lived through.

[Tania G.]: Personally, I was left with damage to one of my legs. I limp. I have polyneuropathy in my leg.

[Selene M.]: That is — simultaneous damage to multiple peripheral nerves, causing numbness, tingling, weakness, and chronic pain.

In Tania’s case, doctors believe the pain is caused by scar tissue in her spine, the result of the many lumbar punctures performed to measure her cerebrospinal fluid.

[Tania G.]: All those punctures created a scar on my spine that rubs against my nerve trunk. And that produces pain, so I live with pain.

[Selene M.]: And she’s not the only one. Several women who survived the outbreak were left with similar neurological complications.

The Tania who walked into Hospital del Parque to give birth is not the same woman who walked out. That woman no longer exists. Her plans and dreams had to change because of other people’s negligence. What troubles her most is the fear of a relapse. Unlike viral or bacterial meningitis, the fungal meningitis Tania contracted can worsen or recur if the fungus is not completely eliminated. Treatment tends to be prolonged and could last a lifetime for those with a weakened immune system. For that reason, Tania must remain under constant medical monitoring to make sure the infection doesn’t return.

[Tania G.]: For me, everything is now: I can’t leave anything for tomorrow. If I want to study, I can’t wait. If I want to travel, I can’t wait. I can no longer afford to postpone things. I have to live now. That’s my perspective: I have to live right now.

[Selene M.]: For herself. And for her family.

[Daniel A.]: Something similar involving contaminated medical supplies occurred recently in Mexico. On April 7th, the Ministry of Health identified 11 suspected cases of bacterial contamination linked to the administration of vitamin IV drips at a clinic in Sonora, in northern Mexico. As of that day, eight people had died, one remained hospitalized, and two others had recovered. The doctor allegedly responsible is a fugitive.

Many thanks to Reyna Guerrero, Nallely Urbina, Eduardo García, José Julián Corrales, and Rodolfo Ondarza, who were also interviewed for this story. And to Marisol Ciriano for her assistance.

This story was produced by Selene Mazón. She is an independent journalist based in Mexico City. The story was edited by Camila Segura and Luis Fernando Vargas. Fact-checking was done by Bruno Scelza. Sound design is by Ana Tuirán, Rémy Lozano, and Andrés Azpiri, with music by Andrés Azpiri.

The rest of the Radio Ambulante team includes Paola Alean, Adriana Bernal, Aneris Casassus, Diego Corzo, Emilia Erbetta, Camilo Jiménez Santofimio, Germán Montoya, Sara Selva Ortiz, Samantha Proaño, Natalia Ramírez, Juan Pablo Santos, David Trujillo, Elsa Liliana Ulloa, Franklin Villavicencio y Mariana Zúñiga.

Carolina Guerrero is the CEO.

Radio Ambulante is a podcast from Radio Ambulante Estudios, produced and mixed in Hindenburg PRO.

If you enjoyed this episode and want us to keep doing independent journalism about Latin America, support us through Deambulantes, our membership program. Visit radioambulante.org/donar and help us keep narrating the region.

Radio Ambulante tells the stories of Latin America. I’m Daniel Alarcón. Thanks for listening.