Two people died this week in Tucuman in the northwest. Argentine from acute pneumonia of “unknown origin”, which alarmed the medical authority.

A total of six people, a medical staff and a patient in the intensive care unit (ICU) at the Tucuman clinic, were found to have symptoms of a mysterious pneumonia.

One patient died on Monday, the second on Wednesday, three more were hospitalized, and the sixth, whose condition is assessed as satisfactory, is at home in isolation, the Ministry of Health of the province of Tucuman explained.

They didn’t have coronavirus

“What these patients have in common is that they have an acute respiratory infection, bilateral pneumonia, and they have a pattern very similar to that of COVID-19, which, however, has been ruled out,” said Provincial Health Minister Luis Medina Ruiz. Click.

He added that patients “have already been tested for COVID-19, influenza, influenza A and B, hantavirus (sb: transmitted by rodents) and 25 other germs.”

It could be an infectious agent, but toxic and/or environmental causes are not ruled out, Mr. Medina said, while water and air conditioning samples are still being analyzed.

The Argentine Ministry of Health announced that “five healthcare workers and a patient in the intensive care unit of a private clinic in San Miguel de Tucumán” who “began to show symptoms between August 18 and 22” became ill.

“No new cases have been recorded since August 22,” even among close contacts of the sick, which the regional ministry called “positive news”, assuring that the situation is “under control”.

The samples were sent for urgent analysis to the national reference laboratory, the Malbran Institute in Buenos Aires. Results are expected by the end of the week.

Source: APE-MPE, AFP.