A total of 11 people have developed symptoms and six are still receiving treatment, three in hospitals, according to provincial health minister Luis Medina Cruz.
Pneumonia caused by Legionella bacteria claimed the life of a fifth patient in Tucuman, in northwestern Argentina, on Sunday, the provincial Ministry of Health announced.
“This is a 64-year-old man who had co-morbidities and was hospitalized in a serious condition in a public hospital,” the ministry explained in a press release.
A total of 11 people have developed symptoms and six are still receiving treatment, three in hospitals, according to provincial health minister Luis Medina Cruz.
The agent that was the focus of bilateral pneumonia “is Legionella”, declared the previous Minister of Health of Argentina, Carla Vicotti, during a press conference in Tucuman, adding that the effort to identify its exact strain is ongoing.
A total of eleven cases were recorded, all linked to a private clinic in San Miguel de Tucuman, the capital of Tucuman province.
Yesterday Saturday morning, the health authorities of the province announced the fourth death since last Monday, that of a 48-year-old man who also had co-morbidities.
Before him, two members of the nursing staff of the private clinic had succumbed, then a 70-year-old patient at the same clinic, where she had undergone surgery.
Initial tests ruled out COVID, influenza, influenza A and B, Hantavirus (s.b.: transmitted by rodents), and dozens of other germs as the cause of bilateral pneumonia.
Samples were sent to be urgently analyzed by the national reference laboratory, the Malbran Institute in Buenos Aires; Health Minister Vicotti presented the initial results of the analyses.
Legionella is a serious lung infection of bacterial origin. Infection can occur “through the respiratory tract, by inhaling the bacterium, through water or air conditioning,” Ms. Vicotti recalled.
The president of the medical school of the province of Tucuman, Hector Salle, underlined last week that the pathology observed was “aggressive”, but it is not a priori a disease transmitted from person to person, given that “the close contacts of these patients they don’t show any symptoms.”
RES-EMP
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