Patients in the U.S. healthcare system continue to contract life-threatening yet preventable infections as a result of healthcare providers’ failure to follow safe injection recommendations, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Breaches in safe injection practices resulted in outbreaks at two outpatient clinics performing pain remediation procedures, with at least 10 patients hospitalized with invasive Staphylococcus aureus or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, according to a report in the July 13 issue of the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

Additional patients were treated with antibiotics on an outpatient basis, and one patient died. The cause of death was listed as multiple drug overdoses, but invasive MRSA could not be ruled out, according to the CDC.

At one clinic, a pain management practice in Arizona, injection safety breaches included reuse of single-dose/single-use medication vials meant for only one patient, as well as failure to wear facemasks during spinal injections. At the second clinic, an orthopedic practice in Delaware, healthcare providers were found to be reusing single-dose/single-use medication vials meant for only one patient.

Medication packaged in single-dose/single-use vials should only be used for a single patient as part of a single procedure, regardless of vial size, the CDC emphasized in the report.

For more details, including guidance on using single-dose/single-use vials, visit http://1.usa.gov/OA1AQF.