Health authorities in Mexico are trying to locate about 400 people who may have been infected with fungal meningitis, following a U.S. alert that detected cases in citizens of that country who underwent surgery in clinics in the Mexican city of Matamoros.

An American died in the context of the outbreak, which involves two medical centers in this town in the state of Tamaulipas (northeast), bordering the US Brownsville, in Texas.

"They will be located to rule out that they are infected," state Health Secretary Vicente Joel Hernandez told AFP on Thursday.

Of the 400 people sought, 20% are Americans and the rest Mexicans operated on at the River Side and K-3 Surgical Center clinics in Matamoros, closed after the death and infection of seven other patients, the official added.

In an alert issued Wednesday, the U.S. government said some U.S. residents who returned from Matamoros were diagnosed with the disease after being injected with an anesthetic into an area around the spine (epidural).

Therefore, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the main federal public health agency in the United States, asked its citizens to cancel any surgical intervention in Matamoros that involves such an injection.

Meningitis causes inflammation of the membranes of the brain and spinal cord. Fungal-type infections are not contagious and are not spread from person to person, the CDC said.

Symptoms are fever, headache, stiff neck, nausea, vomiting, confusion, or sensitivity to light.

Hundreds of Americans flock to Mexican border cities for medical or dental procedures because of their lower cost.

In the state of Durango (north), from mid-October to date, at least 35 Mexicans have died and about 80 have been infected by an outbreak of aseptic meningitis, whose origin was a fungus that could be transmitted at the time of applying anesthesia.

Three people were arrested in that case, including the former director of a state commission against health risk, an inspector and an anesthesiologist.

On March 3, four Americans were kidnapped by suspected drug traffickers in Matamoros. Two of them died from gunshot wounds they sustained while trying to escape and the rest were rescued.

According to authorities, one of the hostages, who survived, planned to undergo cosmetic surgery.

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