(CNN)Months after a mold infection killed a pediatric patient at Seattle Children's Hospital, its CEO has revealed that five more patients have died from the same infection since 2001.
The hospital shuttered its operating rooms twice, first in May and again this month, after it detected the common mold Aspergillus in the air. One patient died and six more were sickened by the initial mold outbreak.
But those seven patients weren't the first to develop the infection, Dr. Jeff Sperring, the CEO, said in a statement Tuesday. Between 2001 and 2014, seven Seattle Children's patients developed the same Aspergillus infection, and five of them died, Sperring said.