Drugs are given by two general methods: enteral and parenteral administration.
Chloramphenicol is administered either orally or parenterally (by injection or infusion), but since it is readily absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract, parenteral administration is reserved for serious infections.
The deaths were linked to a batch of total parenteral nutrition (TPN), which is supposed to deliver a variety of nutrients intravenously when a baby is unable to eat on its own.
Parenteral routes, which do not involve the gastrointestinal tract, include intravenous (injection into a vein), subcutaneous (injection under the skin), intramuscular (injection into a muscle), inhalation (infusion through the lungs), and percutaneous (absorption through intact skin).
The drugs were administered in the same order and were followed by the same reactions — vomiting, loss of appetite, collapse of the immune system — after which intravenous T.P.N. (total parenteral nutrition, which is given to patients who are unable to eat), anti-nausea drugs, antifungal drugs, and antibiotics were administered at regular intervals.
Though he did not want to comment on the specific drug implicated in the outbreak, he said that when high-risk sterile products for spinal injections or for total parenteral nutrition are involved, "we give them a 24-hour expiration date".
Mark is near that 75 percent threshold, so doctors at another hospital closer to his home in Indio, Calif., had put him on the special intravenous feeding, called total parenteral nutrition, or T.P.N., months before; now his liver is starting to suffer.
But with no clues from the physical environment, attention turned to the parenteral nutrition (intravenous feeding).
A ghastly white sludge called total parenteral nutrition had to be fed to me intravenously, which gave me essential nutrients and minerals to keep me going, but wasn't exactly the post-transplant feast I had imagined.
"ITH Pharma is a specialist manufacturer of parenteral nutrition, which is given to babies in neo-natal intensive care units.
The two babies who have been infected are being treated with antibiotics and we are using an alternative type of parenteral nutrition".
