BEIJING, Dec. 19 (Xinhuanet) -- Officials from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention are investigating dozens of blood infections in Illinois and Texas linked to medical syringes contaminated with bacteria.

    About 40 people have gotten sick, including 20 outpatients from Chicago's Rush University Medical Center, but no deaths were reported, according to the U.S. media reports Wednesday.

    Doctors traced the infections earlier this month during home treatment for cancer and other ailments.

    The patients became infected by flushing their central intravenous catheter with the heparin-filled syringes, officials said.

    Heparin is a blood thinner that prevents the formation of blood clots and is used to keep central intravenous lines from clotting.

    The infections were caused by bacteria called Serratia marcescens (pronounced Sur-AY'-she-uh mar-SUH'-sens), found in a single batch of heparin-filled syringes made in Angier, North Carolina, by a company called Sierra Pre-Filled.

    The infections so far have turned up only in Illinois and Texas, though the syringes from that batch also were sent to Colorado, Florida and Pennsylvania, said Dr. Arjun Srinivasan from the CDC.

    The infections can cause fever and chills. They can be serious but generally respond well to antibiotics.

    Dushyant Patel, the president of Sierra Pre-Filled, said the company is working with the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration and has voluntarily recalled the implicated lot-- 070926H.

    "There's nothing out there anymore," Patel said.

    The bacteria were found in fluid from the pre-filled syringes but it is uncertain if the original contamination was in the heparin, the saline used to dilute the drug, or the syringes themselves.

    "We'll be working to perform genetic fingerprinting on the bacteria to confirm a link between bacteria in the syringes and the case patients," Srinivasan said.

(Agencies)