Four people have died since Monday and a total of eleven cases have been recorded, centered on the private San Miguel clinic in Tucuman.
A legionella bacterium is responsible for the pneumonias that have caused four deaths in less than a week in Tucuman (northwest Argentina) and have sparked the interest of the medical community, Health Minister Carla Vicotti announced today.
The factor that caused the outbreak of bilateral pneumonia “is legionella,” the minister said at a press conference in Tucuman and added that the exact type of legionella is being examined.
Four people have died since Monday and a total of eleven cases have been recorded, centered on the private San Miguel clinic in Tucuman.
This morning the regional health authorities announced the fourth death since Monday, of a 48-year-old man who had co-morbidities.
Before him, two members of the medical and nursing staff of the private clinic had died, as well as a 70-year-old woman, a patient at the same clinic where she had undergone surgery.
In total, eleven people experienced similar symptoms, and seven are still being treated, according to the district’s health ministry. Of the ten initial cases, eight were members of the medical and nursing staff of this clinic.
Tests ruled out Covid, influenza, influenza A and B and hantavirus (transmitted by rodents) as causes of these pneumonias, raising questions and samples were sent to the Malibran Institute in Buenos Aires, a national reference institute in the field of infectious diseases, from which the ministry gave the first results.
“The name of the bacterium is being standardized at this time, but it is likely to be (Legionella) pneumophila,” Viciti explained.
“There was never a question of an ‘unknown virus’ but rather that we had a bilateral pneumonia of unknown origin,” he stressed.
Regional Health Minister Luis Medina Ruiz had referred on Wednesday to the case of an infectious agent, but had clarified that “toxic or environmental reasons” had not been ruled out. He had announced that analyzes were being carried out on the clinic’s water and air conditioning system.
Legionnaires’ disease is a serious lung infection of bacterial origin, the infection of which can be caused through the respiratory tract by inhalation of contaminated water through aerosols.
RES-EMP
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